The PDF, short for portable document format, is a file format created by Adobe that lets people easily create documents.

Government loves PDFs. They’re used for meeting agendas and minutes, newsletters, staff reports and, well, everything imaginable.

When not created properly – and often they aren’t – they are inaccessible. But there are broader public service problems PDFs cause, particularly in the machine-readable direction we’re heading. They are cumbersome and research shows that people just don’t like them.

In this episode, I speak with Department of Civic Things CEO Rebecca Woodbury. Rebecca works with governments on content strategy and implementation. This includes PDF audits and best practices. Rebecca and I talk about why PDFs are a digital experience pain point, and how government can move beyond them.

Links

• PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later
• Why governments should get rid of PDF documents
• The elephant in the new accessibility law: PDFs

About Rebecca

Rebecca is the founder of Department of Civic Things. She worked in local government for 12 years and was the City of San Rafael’s first director of Digital Service & Open Government. Government Technology named her one of the Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. She has a masters in Public Policy from Mills College in Oakland, California.