Standard: PDF Links (linking to PDF files)

About this standard

Required or Recommended Required
Effective date 07/12/2006
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Requirements
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Examples
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Definitions

A PDF is a document in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF); the filename extension is .pdf
Contact information is a phone number or an email address where a person could get help with a document, primarily for purposes of accessibility. Possible contacts include your library, public information center, public affairs office or the person who created the document. Whatever information you provide, the document should be traceable back to the program which produced it.

Content requirements

When providing PDFs, include the title of the document and the acronym "PDF" in parentheses in the link text.
After the link, show the number of pages and file size as unlinked text, separated by commas, in parentheses. Provide a link to EPA’s “About PDF” page ( http://www.epa.gov/epahome/pdf.html ) on any Web page that links to PDFs. There are two ways to do this:
- Long disclaimer: Provide the following disclaimer text (or similar language) in a box or paragraph:
  You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.
  - The long disclaimer may appear:
    - at the top of a page that includes many PDFs, right before a paragraph or list of PDFs, or
    - immediately before the first reference to a PDF
    - If a box is used for long disclaimers, use the right-aligned box (style class="disclaimer") or the centered box (style class="disclaimer-wide").
- Inline disclaimer: When the long version is problematic, or where you have only a few PDFs linked, you may link to the “About PDF” page by adding "About PDF" as the last item in parentheses after the link. Only required once per page.
For large pages (e.g. for a poster), also provide paper dimensions inside the parentheses.
If you are posting a non-accessible PDF and you are not posting the same content in some other accessible format (e.g. HTML or text), provide contact information. (If you include an email address, follow the EPA standard for linking to email addresses.
- You may provide contact information in the same box or paragraph as the long disclaimer.
For the number of pages, use "1 pg" for a single page. For multiple pages, use "XX pp" with a space between the number and "pp".
For file size, use "K" for files smaller than 1000K and "MB" for files larger than 1000K. For MB, use at most one decimal place. Do not put a space between the number and "K" or "MB."
You may code the file size information in parentheses to appear in a smaller font by using the style (class="fileinfo").

See Also:

EPA PDF White Paper - This document contains comprehensive information about PDF that shares best practices to address:

accessibility and usability concerns
completing metadata information to aid EPA's and other search engines
reducing file size
dealing with scanned documents
How to Create Web-ready PDFs from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files
Checklist for Using PDFs on the Web

Examples

Long Disclaimer:

Using the long disclaimer in the right aligned box.

Using the long disclaimer in a centered box.

Using long disclaimer, no box, plus contact information:

You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more. If you need help accessing these PDF documents, please contact Chris Robinson at 202-123-4576 or robinson.chris@epa.gov for assistance.

Short Disclaimer Examples

Using the short disclaimer:

How they get those ships inside the bottles (PDF) (24 pp, 240K, About PDF)

Using the short disclaimer plus contact information:

Vapor Extraction System Expanded Into Northern Area (PDF) (2 pp, 40K, About PDF). If you need assistance in obtaining the content of this document, please contact EPA's Water Permits Division at 202-564-9545.

Using the short disclaimer linking to an odd-sized document:

How Far From the Nearest Road? (PDF) (poster 36 x 96 inches, 1 pg, 3MB, About PDF)

Linking to a document that exists in multiple non-HTML versions:

Impact of Best Management Practices on Water Quality of Two Small Watersheds in Indiana: Role of Spatial Scale (PDF) (120 pp, 1.1MB, About PDF) | Text Version (text file) (154K)

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