EBSCO provides two kinds of PDFs in our databases: Native and Scanned.

Native PDF

Native PDFs are received directly from the publisher. They are created from the original electronic source document, producing clear text and images at all magnifications, with selectable text and small file sizes. The quality of the Native PDF is almost always superior. As a result, we have aggressively sought out Native PDF solutions and since 2003 we have increased our percentage of issues posted as Native PDF vs. Scanned PDF by 45%. Today we process approximately 60% of all issues in Native PDF. 

Scanned PDF

Scanned PDFs are created from the print version of the journal. In this case, EBSCO receives the print copy from the publisher and scans the entire journal using high quality scanning equipment. All articles in a journal issue are scanned together, and each article is checked for legibility. Because they are scanned from paper, they have a larger file size and are less clear than native PDFs. They are essentially a photograph of the page. Like a photograph they will display the imperfections of the page and they will get fuzzier as they are magnified.

The quality of our scanned PDFs is achieved by balancing compression (file size) with acuity settings (readability) in our scanning software to produce documents that are useful from a research perspective, without being too large. Research value is increased, using documents that most Internet connections and email services can easily process.

 See also:

EBSCO's Commitment to PDF Quality