Whether you’re working on a small landing page for a startup or revamping a multinational corporation’s entire website, web development is a complicated process. Between writing hundreds of lines of code, writing release notes and debugging your own input or that of your colleagues, it can be incredibly easy to overcomplicate your process, which can lead to mistakes. This is why it’s crucial to streamline your workflows by incorporating PDFs into your day-to-day activities.
PDFs have several key advantages over other commonly used file types. For one thing, PDF files are readable across essentially all devices. This is because they were designed to present their contents in a fixed format that doesn’t change according to screen type. PDFs also have the advantage of being incredibly easy to edit, annotate and merge. In this piece, you’ll learn all about how PDFs can help you streamline your web development workflows and take your efficiency to the next level.
Collaborate With Colleagues
These days, web development is incredibly collaborative. Gone are the days when websites were made by a lone person typing code into a computer. This is why coders must be equipped with collaborative tools like an online PDF editor and file-sharing platforms.
While many view PDFs as a static format, they’re actually incredibly dynamic if you have access to the right tools. It’s easier than ever to copy code onto a PDF file, send it to a colleague for review and have that colleague send it back with notes and annotations. It’s even possible to make changes to a line of code directly within a PDF file by using an online editor.
What’s more, PDFs are also the most universal file format in the world. This means that they can be shared with colleagues, whether they’re working at the desk next to yours or halfway around the world, without the risk of file corruption. Take advantage of the PDF format’s collaborative features to bridge communication gaps within your web development team and speed up your projects.
Track Version History
Most of the time, web development projects aren’t completed in one go. Writing code for the simplest webpage often requires multiple rounds of review, debugging and rewriting based on client feedback. Because of this, it can be extremely useful to maintain a record of the different versions of a site or page that you’re working on.
This is where PDFs come in. Before editing or rewriting a particular piece of code, saving the existing version as a PDF and giving it a descriptive file name allows you to refer back to it at any time in case you need to return to it later on. Following this process ensures that no work is lost and multiplies the efficiency of your web development work.
Automate PDF Generation
When tracking version history with the use of PDFs, copy-and-pasting code into a new document and converting it into a PDF file each time can get tedious, especially for larger projects. Luckily, you don’t need to perform these tasks manually: by creating specialised Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment Pipelines, you can automate the task of saving snapshots and versions of your work as PDF files. Some examples of software that offer this capability include LaTeX and DocBook.
You can also do more than simply automatically save past versions of your web development projects. For instance, some tools let you automate the creation of release notes, test coverage reports, changelogs and API docs. While it’s still important to review output with human eyes, being able to automate these steps of the development process saves you plenty of time and allows you to focus on writing code.
Create Onboarding Notes for New Team Members
While web development is universal, each organisation follows its own set of processes when it comes to tasks like building page templates, drafting landing pages and creating animations. This is why a comprehensive onboarding process for new team members is so important in the world of web development.
Of course, direct mentorship is also preferred, but senior devs don’t always have the time to guide new hires through every step of the process. This is why many companies choose to draft written explainers that newer developers can study on their own time or refer to when they run into a specific problem. PDFs can be tremendously valuable here as well, because of their universality, documents saved as PDFs can be accessed and read on any device. They’re also incredibly easy to send as an email or save on the cloud.
Developers often need to work in extremely fast-paced environments. This means that new team members need to get up to speed as quickly as possible, often with limited direct guidance. Creating PDF onboarding material can speed up the onboarding process and make sure new hires are contributing as quickly as possible.
Debugging Features
Adobe has recently released AI PDF chat, which is an AI-generative PDF feature that allows users to chat with the PDF and utilise all the bonuses that come with machine learning. There are many fantastic ways developers can use this advanced technology to help streamline their workflow.
One example is for debugging. When your code is input into the PDF, you can simply ask the AI feature to scan the code and highlight any potential issues. Once found, you can go ahead and debug the issue, or even ask the PDF chat to debug the issue itself. You’ll want to review the changes yourself, but his level of automation and assistance could be a complete game-changer for coders.
Final Points
The web development process is tricky and often involves working with a large team. PDF files can improve your ways of working and boost your efficiency by allowing for easier collaboration, creating a record of past work and serving as easily-accessible instructional material for developers who have recently joined your team.
In this article, we’ve provided some specific benefits of PDF files for web development. If you haven’t done so yet, start incorporating PDFs into your processes today to elevate the speed and quality of your output.
Hi, I’m Dev Kirtonia, Founder & CEO of Dev Library. A website that provides all SCERT, NCERT 3 to 12, and BA, B.com, B.Sc, and Computer Science with Post Graduate Notes & Suggestions, Novel, eBooks, Biography, Quotes, Study Materials, and more.
