Types of online report

There are five ways in which you can publish your company report on the web:

Full HTML report
‘Hybrid’ HTML report
Image-based report
Accessible version of an image-based report
PDF

You can read a summary of their relative merits in the table of options. More explanation is provided below.

Table of options for online reports

Type of online report	Description	Usability	Corporate branding/ messaging	Accessibility
HTML report	A branded microsite with every page of the report converted to a web page with internal cross-reference links added.	*****	*****	Good
Hybrid HTML report	A branded microsite with some pages of the report converted to web pages with internal cross-reference links added, whilst part of the report is kept in only PDF format.	***	*****	Average
Accessible version of image-based report	Image-based report, but you can toggle to an HTML version of each page, without images and without internal links.	***	**	Good
Image-based report	A Flash- and JPEG-based report in an HTML shell.	**	**	Poor
PDF	A PDF of the report, linked to from the corporate website.	*	*	Poor

Explanation of the types of online report

Full HTML report

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language of the web. It provides a means of describing the structure of text-based information in a document on the web. HTML is better than PDF for searching, indexing, linking, usability, and accessibility. In an HTML report you can link from one page to another, making it easy for the user to jump to relevant information quickly. You can also embed video files and animations if desired. A full HTML report provides the best user experience. The design element of an HTML report brings you an optimal level of branding and corporate messaging.

‘Hybrid’ HTML report

You can also have an HTML report with some pages left in PDF format, for example the notes to the accounts pages. This option gives you just as much branding and corporate messaging as a full HTML report but requires less time to produce, and therefore costs less. The use of PDFs for some pages does, however, diminish the overall usability and accessibility of the report.

Image-based ‘express’ report

The ‘express’ report provides a quick and cost-effective solution that offers many of the benefits of an HTML report at a fraction of the cost. What we do is to convert the PDF pages to images with searchable text – one image for each page – and place the images in an HTML shell. Pages can be viewed full size or in thumbnail image format and there is a zoom facility for increasing image size. This structure gives the reader the benefit of website-type navigation, search, printing selected pages, downloading selected sections, and more.

Accessible version of an image-based ‘express’ report

The accessible express report offers optimal accessibility and usability for this format. Behind each page of the express report we create an HTML version without images or internal links. Navigation is provided in a link list format. The viewer can toggle between the standard, thumbnail and accessible views page-by page. It is especially useful for people who use assistive devices such as screen readers and voice browsers. We take care to code all the data tables correctly so that assistive devices can make sense of them. The design element of the full HTML report is not included.

PDF

Simply uploading a PDF to your website is the quickest, cheapest way of publishing a report on the web. A PDF ensures complete integrity with the printed version and is the best format for downloading or printing. However it is not a good format for browsing large documents on the web. PDFs score low in terms of usability, corporate branding and accessibility.

Read more about HTML reports and image-based reports.