First released in 1998, the Djvu file format is an alternative open file format for scanned document storage. It is specifically targeted at documents that possess text, vector graphic drawings, photos, and colored images. The format's main selling point is its high quality authoring with minimum storage space making it popular in the distribution of magazines, comics, and ebooks. This fact places it in direct competition with the pdf format by Adobe Systems. The text layer in the Djvu file format supports optical character recognition which allows for text selection, copying, and pasting from .djvu files to other text processing applications. Free browser plugins are available for most major internet browsers which allows hosted .Djvu files to be opened directly through compatible browsers.
The .pdf file format extension was developed by Adobe systems in 1993 as a means of presenting documents in a consistent manner across different platforms, hardware, operating systems, and applications. The format was not released as an open source document format until 2008, though minimal proprietary technologies still controlled by Adobe Systems exist in the format. Every .pdf document carries with it the necessary meta information required to properly reconstruct the text, fonts, and graphics used to produce the document. This ensures that documents will be viewed in exactly the same way the author intended regardless of the device used to open the document. From conception to date, Adobe Systems has continued to support the format adding features with every iteration of the standard including hardened algorithms for document encryption and privacy. Today, many freely available readers exist allowing you to open and view .pdf documents and create or convert other file formats such as .jpeg and .doc into .pdf documents.