Making the best of PDF technology

Lianne Cooper

18 July 2008

A COMMUNICATIONS agency from Redditch is working alongside software giant Adobe to transform the way companies send out marketing material and communicate internally.
CW Corporate Communications on Prospect Hill has been developing the cutting edge technology which uses universally available PDFs to stream 'rich media' - such as music, videos and other audio and graphics - directly into email documents with sensible file sizes.
Previously, anyone wanting to send marketing material with rich media would need to do so through an internet site because embedding a video or audio in a PDF made the file so large it could not be e-mailed.
The company's PDF specialist, Harry Hemus, said: "The downside to using websites is that you are limited by the available fonts and typography so design is compromised.
"Also lots of different windows keep popping up on screen and the user experience can become over complicated and irritating.
"The advantages of PDFs are that they can be produced very quickly, with a fresh design for every publication, are easy and smooth to navigate and appear as a self-contained document."
After selling his own project management company in Cheltenham in 2006, Harry teamed up with CW Corporate Communications, at its town centre offices, to develop the technology.
He added: "A major challenge was to find a way of keeping the file size down so it could be sent easily.
"By hosting the large ‘rich media’ content externally and streaming it into the PDF on demand, we have managed to do just that.
“These i-PDFs, have undoubtedly enhanced the marketing mix for CW’s major clients, and are now a very real option for companies looking to send short promotional videos, interactive newsletters, surveys, readers’ response forms and music clips - or a combination of all of these - in one document.
CW is this year celebrating its 20th year in business and clients include Barclays, BMW, BP, E.ON, Rolls Royce and Siemens.
Managing director Nigel Curtis added: "Most people only think of PDFs as a glorified Word document or proofing tool.
"The format has had a bit of an image problem but, when you delve beneath the surface, PDFs are a massively versatile tool."

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