Case study · Spin-up from a PDF
Abbots Langley High Street
The Abbots Langley Local History Society’s shop project kept its research in a 28-page booklet, A Directory of Shops in Abbots Langley High Street, laid out in Word for printing. The Society asked for a website. We built one from the PDF: all 74 entries on a street map, a finder by trade, then-and-now photographs to compare, and an editor so the team can keep adding to it.
See it live
BeforeAfter
The booklet is laid out for printing and folding, so on screen each sheet pairs pages that are far apart: the back cover sits beside the front, and page 4 beside page 25.
BeforeAfter
Each shop opens beside the map, with its photographs, its earlier occupants and a link of its own to share.
| Compared | The booklet (PDF) | The website |
|---|---|---|
| Reading order on screen | Laid out for printing: page 4 sits beside page 25 | One page for each side of the street, in street order |
| Find a shop | The index, then the pages | Search all 74 entries and every past occupant, or pick one of 11 trades |
| Where it is | The address | 48 entries on a street map |
| Then and now | Photographs printed side by side | 16 pairs you drag to compare |
| Sources | Footnote numbers, with the list at the back | Each footnote names its source where you read it |
| On a phone | A whole sheet shrunk to the screen: pinch and zoom to read | Fits the screen, even on small phones |
| Share one shop | No | Yes. Every shop has its own link. |
| Keeping it up to date | Edit the Word document and export a new PDF | Sign in, edit and save: the site updates itself |
| Scores on a phone, out of 100 | Cannot be tested: it is a PDF | Speed 94, easy to use for everyone 97, built to current standards 100, ready for search engines 100 |
Scores are out of 100, from Google’s Lighthouse test as if on a mid-range phone with a slow mobile connection: the middle result of three tests, run on 14 Oct 2026. The front page was measured.
Demo 1 · How a spin-up runs
From a booklet to a website, in four steps
These are the same four steps as a spin-up for any client. Select one to see what it involved here. All numbers come from the real project.
Demo 2 · Find a shop, see where it stood
Every butcher, baker and undertaker, on one street plan
This demo uses the real list of 74 entries. Choose a trade to find every address that has ever had one, or type part of a name. Matches light up on the plan, and some of them are houses now. The live site also searches every past occupant and opens each shop on a street map.
Loading the directory…
Running cost
Low cost to run, and nothing for the Society to look after
Ready-made pages
Every page is prepared in advance, so serving it costs nothing, however many visitors come.
Nothing running for visitors
The only moving part is the editor, and it runs only when someone from the team signs in.
No database
The entries are one file, and every change is kept as a dated version, so any edit can be undone.
Fonts from the site itself
The fonts are served by the site, so a visit sends nobody’s details to Google. Only the street map itself comes from elsewhere, from OpenStreetMap, a free map.