User:CKoerner (WMF)/Mobile PDF

Subject: New print to pdf feature for mobile web readers

The Readers web team will be deploying a new feature this week to make it easier to download PDF versions of articles on the mobile website. [0]

Providing better offline functionality was one of the highlighted areas of focus based on the generative research done by the New Readers team in Mexico, Nigeria, and India. Over the past year, the New Readers and Readers Web teams created a prototype for mobile PDFs which was evaluated by user research and community feedback [1]. As the prototype evaluation received positive feedback and results, we went forward with development. [2]

For the initial deployment, the feature will be available to Google Chrome browsers on Android with support for other mobile browsers to come in the future. For Chrome, the feature will use the native Android print functionality where users can choose to download a webpage as a PDF. Mobile print styles will be used for these PDFs to ensure optimal readability for smaller screens. [3] The feature will be available starting Wednesday, Nov 15. For more information, see the project page on MediaWiki.org. [0]

[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile_PDFs

[1]  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Offline

[2]  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Offline#Concept_testing_for_mobile_web

[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Print_Styles#Mobile_Printing