Mobile Killed the PDF Star

PDFs are a wonderful thing.

These little file gems are great for sharing information. Our email inboxes are full of PDFs promoting campus events. For a period there in the new millennium, the humble PDF was a transformative way to stylishly communicate information.

And then along came the mobile device revolution. Mobile killed the PDF star.

The venerable PDF has been officially knocked from its perch as the go-to format for posting information to a web page. With people looking at the UM-Flint website on a wide variety of devices, PDFs are just simply not adaptable to the brave new mobile world.

So what’s a PDF to do?

PDFs are still great for use in print, but don’t even think about loading one onto umflint.edu. The very people you are trying to share information with won’t be able to read it on a smartphone at all. Even worse, your PDF information will not show up in search. And one more thing….

If you want anything promoted on the umflint.edu homepage, it’s just not going to happen if you want us to link to a PDF. Harsh, I know, but as my parents use to say, “It’s for your own good.” And most importantly, for the good of all our mobile device users.