If your product team works on a web portal, chances are you might need to convert document to HTML and PDF. HTML to PDF conversion is the backbone of web solutions. It enables web software to automatically create PDF documents, archive them, and forward for delivery. These are email copies, banking statements, utility bills, healthcare reports, order confirmations, and other docs used across all web services.

Learn more about the work of web portals and why they need to convert HTML to PDF automatically.

What Is a Web Portal?

A web portal is a specially designed web-based platform that accumulates information from different sources to provide unified access to it. Users can view the most relevant data and utilize it for task management, data analytics, collaboration, and more. Whereas websites only serve an informative purpose, web portals enable people to solve specific problems. For example, they can generate an invoice and download it.

Besides, web portals require login credentials since they store personal information of users, which is not the case for standard websites. This way, web portals are more complicated than websites and support much richer functionality.

Read About Automated Document Generation in Insurance Web Portals

How Do Web Portals Operate?

As we have already mentioned, web portals unite information from third-party sources. They rely on HTML, CSS, AngularJS, RoR, and other web development technologies to manage data and process user requests. To access a web portal, users need to log in through a web browser.

Generally, web portals fall into two types: horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal web portals are used by several organizations belonging to the same industry. These are educational web solutions, government portals, cultural portals, etc.

Vertical web portals are customer-centric solutions that connect businesses and customers.

Consumers access such web platforms to obtain information provided by a specific company or organization. Vertical solutions include healthcare services, e-commerce, or retail portals.

Both web portal types rely on the same technology and have many overlapping features. They also share the characteristics listed below.

Key Characteristics of Web Portals

All web portals have several features that differentiate them from websites. Here are the capabilities that highlight the differences.

• Only authorized users can access web portals. Web portals are meant to provide information to specific users, not to attract traffic.
• Web portals store private data (names, surnames, contact details, Word files, PDF documents, etc.). Web portals accumulate personal information from many sources and hence, require ultimate data security and regulatory compliance.
• They are domain-specific. Web portals are used in selected fields like healthcare, finances, or insurance. It shapes their functionality and target audience.
• Real-time user interactions and dynamic content. Web portals process user requests in real-time and are highly automated. They also serve web content, including online documents, dynamically.
• Complex software development and maintenance. Web portals are more difficult to launch than websites. You will need to connect multiple resources and build rich functionality, including HTML file to PDF document conversion.
  

Given the functionality and uses of web portals, most solutions need to convert documents to HTML and PDF. The ability to convert HTML to PDF enables web solutions to perform their core features involving document generation.

‍Learn to Use an HTML to PDF Converter For Digital Invoicing

Why Web Portals Need HTML to PDF Conversion

Web portals that generate documents, archive communications, and create reports require the use of PDF format. PDF file format is a de-facto document management standard for many industries. It ensures the data security required for personal information.

Yet web solutions cannot convert to PDF right away; they must generate HTML first. HTML or Hypertext Markup Language creates the core of any web page. It has associations with other files that govern the look of the web page or appear on it. All web solutions generate documents in HTML and only then convert HTML files to PDF. Without HTML to PDF conversion, a web portal cannot display properly formatted documents. It also cannot allow retrieving files for printing or online delivery. Hence, for quality document management, any web portal needs to save as PDF HTML files.

HTML to PDF conversion uses in web portals:

Real-time display of documents

Web page to PDF conversion enables web portals to show the formatted version of documents right in a web browser. Users can dynamically interact with the file to sign it, for example. Such functionality is critical in financial, banking, insurance, e-commerce, and other web solutions that need to provide customers with reliable docs.

Document retrieval

In addition to viewing documents, customers should also be able to download them by clicking the Download PDF button. They may need to print out, store, or forward files to someone else. To cover all these needs, your portal must convert HTML to PDF free of charge and support document retrieval.

Archiving and record-keeping

Users don’t always need documents the moment they generate them. They may want to return to previous records to check or retrieve them later. In this case, HTML to PDF is necessary for archiving. Businesses that own web portals also utilize HTML to PDF archiving. PDF format is a trusted way to store delivered communications.

Online and offline delivery of official communications

You also need HTML to PDF conversion to attach custom documents to your emails or deliver communications by mail. When you have this feature in your web portal, you can create personalized documents with tailored fields (e.g., invoices, bills, test results, etc.). After rendering, the portal can forward the docs for mailing.

Enhanced user experience

Conversion enables you to provide consumers with neat documents instead of plain text. PDFs are easier to read and manage than HTML. Hence, by adopting HTML to PDF rendering, you enhance the usability of your web portal and boost customer satisfaction.

Regulatory compliance

If you work in a regulated industry, you need to ensure data security and record-keeping in your web portals. Automated PDF storage simplifies compliance. You automatically get secure copies of everything you send to customers.

As to the ways to implement automated HTML to PDF conversion in web portals, we recommend APIs. Software vendors, including Inkit, provide quality APIs to convert HTML to PDF free of charge. The decision to use an API rather than custom software development or online checkers increases your efficiency and brings financial benefits.

Inkit Render to Convert HTML to PDF Free of Charge

Render is an automated document generation API available in Inkit’s platform. Layer it into your web portal to automate HTML to PDF conversion and retrieval. After a quick integration, your users will be able to view tailored PDFs.

Render allows you to customize headers and footers, page size, numbers, margins, and other document parameters. Hence, you can use it with any web portal, be it an e-commerce or banking platform. It also ensures ultimate document security thanks to user roles support. You create team-based access rights to control how different categories of users utilize document generation features.

Check out Render pricing here or get a convert HTML to PDF free version.