Why You Should Never Use Flash for Magazines and Newsletters

PDF is the natural format for material, such as magazines and newsletters, with static content and a fixed page-by-page design.

However, there have been several times I notice magazines will show their content on the website using a special Flash plugin. This is a bad, bad idea, for many reasons:

1. Flash is not supported on iOS devices, and is being dropped from Android devices. It’s becoming less popular everywhere.
2. PDF, on the other hand, can be opened on any platform; even smartphone users have a choice of apps for how they want to view them.
3. PDFs are more easily shareable. If one person likes your sample, that person can share it with friends, who can open it right from an email, or even take it offline with them to read when they wish, even away from an Internet connection. Sharing in this case is good, as the point is to spread content to interest people in what you have to offer.
4. PDF content could be indexed by search engines, leading to more traffic to your site. Flash? Well, supposedly Google can index Flash, but on the same page they also warn that Flash should not be used for content.
5. Most Internet users are very familiar with PDF. Any Flash plugin used to portray a digital e-zine would be new to almost everyone, causing more confusion and delays—which makes visitors much more likely to give up and leave the site.
6. The Flash reader tools I have seen are all a pain to use and tend to interfere with reading. PDF is far from perfect, but it’s much better.
7. PDF can be printed, which, again, leads to easier consumption and sharing for people that like to print articles.

(Of course, this is for basic, static content. Changing content should be part of a website, and more interactive applications should be rendered in HTML5).

What do you think? What other reasons did I miss? Or do you disagree, is there any reason to use Flash for a digital publication? Speak up in the comments!