Guardian offers free PDF "anywhere, anytime" and A4

July 2006

The Guardian has launched a free PDF selection of news for anyone to download and print out themselves. Editor Alan Rusbridger told Press Gazette that "Increasingly, readers are demanding editorial content tailored to the time and place of their choosing, rather than to artificial deadlines dictated by old print production schedules."

The PDF is updated every fifteen minutes from the stream of news sent to the website. There are editions for top stories, media, world, sports and business. Some photography is included but so far the resolution seems to be sometimes of a quality intended for web viewing.

The PDF is available everywhere ane may contribute to building interest in the website. WikiNews has offered a PDF version for over a year, updated daily.

Writing in the 'Editor's Weblog', Neil McIntosh points out that 'In the future, there's the promise of "e-paper" devices that manage to combine the legibility of ink on paper with the connectedness of laptops and mobile phones, but for now the early versions of those devices are expensive and limited. Downloading and printing is still easier, and much, much cheaper.'

This use of PDF has implications for the hard copy newspaper and for the subscription to a 'digital edition' of the hard copy. For news the free version may be better if less comprehensive. Updated every fifteen minutes sounds more interesting than a copy of something from yesterday. However the photographs and illustration are not included on any scale. This seems a waste of PDF potential. The 'digital editions' have not been widely promoted and no numbers have been published on how well they are doing. It appears the Guardian now believes in a model of free web content funded by advertising.

The FT also offers a free A4 PDF for download., see below. It is thought that the UK fully paid circulation for the FT is now below 100,000. However it is hard to know how the finances actually work when the online advertising is included. The number of paid subscribers for the website may be higher than the UK print circulation.

Meanwhile Roy Greenslade, newly established as a blogger, has pointed out that "In 1966, the (UK) Sunday titles – of whatever size and persusasion – together sold a grand total of 23.4m. As of last month, the daily total had come down to 11.3m and the Sunday total was 12m. In percentage terms therefore, over 40 years the circulation of dailies has fallen 26.8% and the Sundays by 48.9%."

In this posting, Greenslade includes no figures on traffic for web sites though he sometimes links the numbers.

Circulation figures for business magazines will soon be easier to compare. The ABC Council has ratified the recommendation of a change to the way digital editions are reported on business to business (B2B) certificates. This change of reporting will enable print and digital edition circulation to be combined on B2B certificates.

The numbers for newspapers, or media organisations that include newspapers, as well as podcasting, websites and PDF designed for print, are likely to remain less than transparent.