Creating PDFs
PDF publishing checklist
The following checklist is a general guide to help web publishers ensure that the PDF principles have been met.
- The document has been assessed for it suitability to be presented in PDF
- An alternative format (HTML, RTF or text only) has been supplied or contact details/ link to the ‘Contact us’ page is provided
- PDF has been divided into smaller files as it is larger than 200kB
- Each section of the PDF has been linked to from a HTML cover page
- The file type and size have been provided
- File type has been indicated via the correct PDF file icon or use of text only
- A descriptive title and summary of the PDF are provided
- The title of the document is a hyperlink to the PDF
- The full PDF is available for download
- The PDF has not been linked to directly
- Notification that Adobe Reader is required to view PDFs is provided
- A link to instructions and help with download and saving PDFs is linked to
- The PDF cover sheet has been replaced with a stripped down version
- PDF has been optimised correctly to ensure minimum file size
- Conversion to other formats has been appropriately validated
- Correct security settings have been applied, allowing graphics and text to be selected
- Document description properties have been completed
- Pages have been cropped to A4 paper size
- Custom fonts have been embedded
- There are no hyperlinks within the PDF
- References to external absolute URLs have been provided
- Acrobat bookmarks have been created as the document is quite large
- An Acrobat bookmark has been created linking to the HTML cover page for the PDF
Last updated 24 August 2005