FAQ: What is the difference between PDF and EPUB eBook formats in library databases?
EBSCO eBooks
EBSCO is increasingly offering books in two different eBook viewing formats, PDF and EPUB. The format you want to use depends on what functionality you want, including saving pages. The viewing formats are under the Access Options menu at the top of the eBook record page, under the title of the eBook.
PDFs are designed for fixed layouts, preserving the original document's formatting, including page numbers. You can tell you're in the PDF because there's a little box at the bottom that lets you type in a page number to jump to that page, whereas the EPUB doesn't have that.
EPUB
EPUB will re-wrap the text according to your screen size and you have much more flexibility re font size etc. It's a much better reading experience. The arrows at the bottom navigate between sections and not pages.
Saving Pages & Page Numbers for Citing
However, if you need to save pages to a PDF, and your intent is to possibly cite a quotation from the book, it is important that you save from the PDF view, not the EPUB view because the original page numbers are totally lost from the downloaded PDF when saved from the EPUB view.
In the EPUB-originated saved PDF, you get instead artificially generated 1,2,3,4 page numbers at the bottom which in no way correspond to the actual book page numbers. The original book page numbers are completely lost.
To save a PDF, click on the download icon next the chapter you would like to save in the table of contents.
