Grow · Intermediate
PDF catalogue or online product catalogue: what each is good for
Many industrial companies publish their range as one large PDF and call it the digital catalogue. It is a useful document, but it does a different job from an online product catalogue, and most companies need both.
Photo: Femy Praseeth, public domain (CC0)
In this guide
Short answer
Keep both, and give them different jobs. A PDF catalogue is the printed catalogue on a screen: right for print, offline use and a fixed layout. An online product catalogue is a tool people search: every product has its own page, current data and a quote request. Feed both from one data source.
What is the difference between a PDF catalogue and an online product catalogue?
A PDF catalogue is a document; an online product catalogue is a database with pages.
The PDF is laid out once, page by page, like the printed edition. It looks the same on every device, and its content is fixed on the day it was exported.
In an online catalogue, every product is a record: name, article number, technical values, variants, pictures, documents. The website builds a page from each record. Because the data is structured, visitors can filter by flow rate, pressure or thread size, search by order number, and compare variants. When a value changes in the data, the page changes with it.
Which one do buyers and search engines find?
The online catalogue is found product by product; the PDF is found as one file. The figures at the top of this article are an illustrative example.
Search engines can read the text in a PDF and can list the file as a result. The result is the whole document, though. A buyer who searches for the order number of a spare part and lands on a PDF of 300 pages has to search again inside it, often on a phone. A product page answers the same search with the part itself: title, data, drawing and a button to ask for a quote. A web page can also carry structured data that tells a search engine the name, the article number and the manufacturer of the product. A PDF cannot. Making each product findable is ordinary search engine optimisation.
| Question | PDF catalogue | Online product catalogue |
|---|---|---|
| Found in search engines | As one file | Each product with its own page |
| Search by order number | Inside the opened file only | Site search and search engines |
| Always current | No, fixed at the export date | Yes, when the data is maintained |
| Technical data and variants | Static tables | Filters, variant lists, comparison |
| Request a quote | Reader must write an email | Form that names the product |
| Languages | One file for each language | Shared data, translated texts |
| Offline use and print | Very good | Weak, unless pages offer a PDF data sheet |
When is a PDF catalogue enough?
A PDF alone is enough when the range is small, changes rarely, and customers already know what they want.
The PDF also keeps its place next to an online catalogue. It is the right format in these cases:
- A customer or a tender asks for a complete catalogue as a document.
- Service technicians work where there is no network connection.
- Sales staff and trade fair visitors want something to print or to hand over.
It stops being enough when people outside the company have to find one product among hundreds, when prices or technical data change during the year, or when the range is offered in several languages. Each language is then a separate file to lay out and check. On a website the technical data is shared between languages and only the texts are translated, as described under multilingual websites.
How much work is an update in each format?
An update costs far less in an online catalogue, because nothing is laid out again. The chart is an illustrative example, not a measurement: 40 products receive new technical values in a catalogue of 800.
In the PDF, the values are changed (4 hours), the pages are laid out again (6 hours) and proofread (3 hours), and the file is exported and distributed (2 hours): 15 hours. In the online catalogue the same values are changed (4 hours), imported and checked (1 hour) and published (1 hour): 6 hours. The data work is the same. The difference is the layout.
Illustrative example: hours of work to update 40 products
How do you keep both from one source?
Keep one product table and make everything else a result of it. A PDF and a website that are maintained separately soon contradict each other.
- One product tableAll article numbers, technical values, texts and picture names live in one place: a spreadsheet, an ERP system or a product database. Nothing is corrected anywhere else.
- The website reads the tableProducts are imported, not typed. A new import updates existing products. How that works is described in product data from Excel to the website.
- Data sheets come from the pageEach product page offers a PDF data sheet made from the same record, so the document a buyer files matches the website.
- The full catalogue is an editionThe complete PDF or printed catalogue is produced from an export of the same table, on a fixed date that is printed on it.
How we do it: we start with your existing data, not with the design. We look at the table or the files behind the current catalogue, agree the structure of families, series, products and variants, and build the pages around it.
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