Tip For Which DataSheet.PDF To Choose

[CDRIVE]

All the major Data Sheet sites will usually offer you quite a few data sheets, offered by various manufacturers, for the same device. For instance, you may see a listing from National with a file size of 65KB and another from GenericNameElectronics, with a file size of 386 KB. At first glance you may think that the latter obviously contains more data. After all, it's nearly 6 times the file size of the National sheet. Well, not necessarily. Both PDFs may contain exactly the same number of pages and exactly the same information.

So why is the GenericNameElectronics file so large?

Simple, this data sheet is not really in .pdf format. Well, it is but the text as well as the graphics were inserted as images copied from a real .pdf file. If I have a choice I'll avoid this type of data sheet. Not only because of the file size but because you can't search text with and image copy. Secondly, because, photo copies are never as good as an original

 

[(*steve*)]

Yeah, some are scanned copies of paper versions, and they are larger (and generally poorer).

Some (many?) older datasheets were only available on paper, so it's hard to find them other than scanned.

On the other hand, you may find different details on datasheets from different companies. In that case it can be useful to have more than one...

 

[CDRIVE]

Yeah Steve, I've found that to be true also. So, I too have multiples of a single device and like you said, you're unlikely to find a non scanned data sheet for a 6C4.