HTML documents

Communicating a message on the Web usually takes the form of text on a Web page, but sometimes includes documents that you may be tempted to post as Word or PDF files. Under most circumstances, content from Word and PDF files will be converted into a HTML page, but there are some exceptions.

When to use Adobe Acrobat PDFs

There are no absolute rules on when to use a PDF, but generally we reserve PDFs for official letters, bulletins, brochures, and long documents — its good to think of these as documents you feel sure people will want to print for reading or other use offline.

PDF files should be used in three cases:

1. You have a long document over five pages long that is mostly text.
2. You have a document that is intended to be downloaded and printed to use off the Web.
3. You have a document you wish to make accessible yet remain secure and unchangeable.

Any other documents outside this criteria should be converted to HTML for the Web.

When to use Microsoft Word documents

We generally only use Word documents for two reasons: (1) when they are forms that we expect people to print and mail (2) when we are providing a sample document that we want people to use and alter to their own needs.