Hello! I support a website for my home owner association. A major reason for having the website is to have a repository for our legal documents in PDF format.

The "original" documents are actually paper documents, a copy of which has been kept on file with county/state agencies for about 25 years. But since then, that document has been scanned and is available as a PDF. The pages are "images" of the original typewritten text, complete with all of the goofy weirdness from old copy machines and so forth. Most people just use that PDF or a paper copy, and manually scroll or page through the content.. But that's so 2005!

It turns out that our association attorney has been using a similar PDF file, only his version is actually text searchable. I'm guessing that it was done by a past intern or paralegal. His copy still has the old "pages as images", but somehow, his version has metadata or something that allows the user to actually search the content. He sent me a copy for posting on our website, with the suggestion that I include a disclaimer that the actual "true" copies are on file with the County.

So, I received his file and I got really curious as to whether or not his copy could be used as a source for importing into Omnipage or even Word so that I could actually complete an old project to convert it to a fully realized, searchable and indexed document, complete with a working Table of Contents that allows a user to hit the search window or just click on links to quickly navigate anywhere in the document. So I imported it and converted it into Word. To my pleasant surprise, even that low quality photocopy came in about 80-85% correct, making my idea very feasible, if a bit labor intensive on my part.

So I decided to start changing titles, headings, and the like into real "Word" versions of same for a Table of Contents. After spending over a solid day on that, it's actually coming together quite nicely.

My original intent for this project was to finish my edits, get some board members to help me proofread everything, and then convert it from Word into PDF and just post it on the website.

That's the simple version, but I'm a "conquer the world" type, so now I'm thinking, why not take it one step further and go beyond the motif of having just a mere "document"? Why not consider "Responsifying" all that content and making it PART OF OUR WEBSITE so that anybody can read it on any sized screen or device. Oh sure, I'll still provide the PDF for download, but it's really hard to read a PDF on a smartphone screen.

About 50 pages of the document are mostly static and haven't changed in over 25 years. We do make "rule changes" in board meetings, and those get added as separate documents, but that's maybe another 10-12 pages at most. We're not talking about "War and Peace" here, so I think it's doable.

Of course, we'll still keep the old "legal copy" on file with County and State agencies (it turns out that it's a real pain to get a new copy re-certified as original, so we probably won't bother), but for our community and our board of directors, I'm thinking that Responsifying the whole thing, including past and future amendments might make our legal docs a lot more usable, especially to anybody with a smartphone in their hand.

What do you think?

Currently, I'm working on the content in Word 365 to fix the messy stuff that came in from the import (things like roman numeral "I" (the letter "i") came out as "1", and many photo-copy unclear text got downright misspelled, etc), establish consistent formatting, and create the working table of contents. I probably have another Saturday's worth of work on that stuff, and from there I'll be ready to take it to another file format or into Site Designer. But of course I'd like to retain all the working elements from the Word document, if I can; because that's a standard office format that I can retain as my "working original".

Specifically, I'm interested overall in ways to convert such a thing into pages for my website, and ways to maybe make future maintenance and updates somewhat easier. And finally, one day in the distant future, I will probably need to hand all this over to another person for ongoing care and feeding; so there's that too.

Ideas welcome, and thanks in advance!

Hi Bif,
It sounds like your on your way. I think only you can determine the needs of your site and it's users. Make sure you have some kind of analytics setup on your site so you can track what kind of users are coming to your site so you can tell what's popular by what kind of device. It sounds like you'll be doing a lot of coping and pasting.

Hi and thank you for your response, Eric!

Yeah, I kind of decided somewhere between the time I typed the subject on that post and the time I completed my first paragraph...that I'm going to do it, so there's really no question at this point. But more importantly, I guess I'm open to hearing about anybody's experience for having done something similar.

My community has about 700 adults and teenagers in it. Judging by the number of people with IoT-enabled irrigation and cars, I'd say that probably 50-60% of those are technology-literate, with maybe half of those at some level of advanced skill. Skills and ability won't be an issue here.

Most people visit the site to read or download the governing documents, and sometimes to read the "news" page or look up the next meeting. We also have a portal for payments and violations, as well as an architectural request system, but those are separate sites managed by our contracted association management firm or their subcontractors.

The site I manage is just for general communication of board business, a place to keep the governing documents, and a vehicle for occasional communication between the board and the homeowners not requiring an actual mailing. Think of it as a web-version of the old "door hanger" advertisement. We don't even have need for a forum or individualized user accounts because the other two sites already do all the hard stuff.

All in all, it's a pretty simple affair. Added functionality for the docs, however; would really be a huge convenience. Besides, I never really learned not to touch a hot stove.

If I understand correctly, then, you can convert pdf files in other formats such as word, for example. I occupy this site https://smallpdf.com to make some conversions from pdf to excel - databases - and it works perfectly.
Anyway, your idea is very good and if you achieve something defined it would be very good.
Regards