Scientific American Digital: Digital archive of all issues from 1993 to present.

General

As a Scientific American print subscriber, do I have access to the content on Scientific American Digital?

Where can I find issues published before 1993?

Where can I order a hard copy of an issue?

I can't find the article or issue I'm looking for. What am I doing wrong?

How do I research articles published prior to 1993?

Can I subscribe to Scientific American Mind in digital format?

How can I request permission to reuse text or an image from Scientific American?

Can I print the PDF files?

Can I read the digital magazine on my Palm or Pocket PC device?

Billing and Account Management

What forms of payment do you accept?

Is it safe to use my credit card on Scientific American Digital?

How do I update my account information such as my email address?

How do I change my username and/or password?

How do I change my credit card information?

How do I access and download an issue I purchased within the past 30 days?

Technical

What are the site requirements?

I get an error when I open a downloaded file. What should I do?

The downloaded file size is 0 bytes and it is not a zip file. What should I do?

The file opens as unreadable gibberish. What should I do?

The article view will not open in the browser. How do I fix this?

Why won't the document print?

I'm having trouble signing in. What should I do?

General

As a Scientific American print subscriber, do I have access to the content on Scientific American Digital?
The Scientific American print subscription and Scientific American Digital are separate products. Your print subscription does not include access to Scientific American Digital. Selections from the magazine, including 2 feature articles from each issue, are available for free on www.sciam.com.

Where can I find issues published before 1993?
Your library is the best resource for researching articles and issues prior to 1993.
We do have limited inventory of back issues. For availability and ordering, click here.

Where can I order a hard copy of an issue?
To order hard copies of Scientific American Magazine, Special Editions and Scientific American Mind issues, click here. Inventory is limited.

I can't find the article or issue I'm looking for. What am I doing wrong?
First, make sure you are spelling your search terms correctly. Scientific American Digital has articles from 1993 to the present. The article or issue you are looking for could have been published prior to 1993. Please check with your library for articles published prior to 1993. For assistance with searching, please refer to our search tips.

How do I research articles published before 1993?
You can consult The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature or The Science and Technology Index available at your local library. In addition, each December issue has an index of that year's articles.

Can I subscribe to Scientific American Mind in digital format?
We do not offer the digital subscription for Scientific American Mind. The Mind issues in digital format can be purchased individually on a pay-per-issue basis. The print subscription is available at www.sciammind.com.

How can I request permission to reuse text or an image from Scientific American?
Content from Scientific American cannot be used without permission clearance. To request permission to use any material from Scientific American, click here.

Can I print the PDF files?
Yes. We do not restrict printing on the PDF files.

Can I read the digital magazine on my Palm or Pocket PC device?
At this time, our PDF files are not supported on handheld devices, such as Palm and Pocket PC.

Billing and Account Management

What forms of payment do you accept?
We accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.

Is it safe to use my credit card on Scientific American Digital?
Yes. We use industry standard SSL encryption for secure transmission of your credit card and personal information. SSL provides confidentiality between two communicating applications, such as your PC and our corporate Internet server. When your data is transmitted over the Internet, it is encrypted at the sending end and then decrypted at the receiving end.

How do I update my account information such as my email address?
Click MY ACCOUNT at the top of the page and sign in if prompted. On your account page, click "Update user information". Enter your new information and click "Save Changes".

How do I change my username and/or password?
Click MY ACCOUNT at the top of the page and sign in if prompted. On your account page, click "Change username/password". Enter your new username, password and verify password. Click "Save Changes".

How do I change my credit card information?
Click MY ACCOUNT at the top of the page and sign in if prompted. On your account page, click "Update billing information". Enter your new credit card number and expiration date. Click "Save Changes".

How do I access and download an issue I purchased within the past 30 days?
Issues purchased in the past 30 days can be accessed in your download history in MY ACCOUNT.

Technical

What are the site requirements?
Using Scientific American Digital requires certain software to take advantage of all the features and to access the content. Most computers will already have the required software installed to use the site. However, should you need to install software, use the links below to be directed to free downloads.

Fully-supported browsers:
Internet Explorer 5.5+ (Windows)
Firefox 1.0+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Safari 1.2+ (Mac)
Netscape 7.1+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Mozilla 1.4+ (Windows, Mac Linux)

Cookies and Javascript must be enabled on your browser.

MSN browser (Windows) and AOL 5 browser (Mac) will not work on the site. Please use one of the browsers above.

Viewing and printing the digital magazine:
Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0

Uncompressing downloaded files:
Windows XP-Service Pack 2+ and Mac OS X 10.3+ have built-in support to uncompress zip files. For older operating systems, please refer to these applications.
Zip Reader (Windows)
Stuffit Expander 6.0+ (Mac)

I get an error when I open a downloaded file. What should I do?
The file might have been corrupted during the download. Please try your download again. Purchased issues can be accessed for 30 days from your download history in MY ACCOUNT.
If you continue to get an error with your downloads, your zip utility to uncompress the file might be incompatible. Please refer to the site requirements.

The downloaded file size is 0 bytes and it is not a zip file. What should I do?
On a Mac, using Speed Download or other download managers will not work with the site. You will need to remove Speed Download from your computer to download.
On Windows, the MSN browser does not work with downloads from the site. Please refer to the site requirements for a supported browser.
Lastly, your firewall configuration or security settings in anti-virus/security software could be preventing the download.

The file opens as unreadable gibberish. What should I do?
The downloaded file is compressed zip format. You will need to uncompress the file before viewing it. After the file is uncompressed, you will use Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and view the file. Please refer to the site requirements.

The article view will not open in the browser. How do I fix this?
You will need to configure Adobe Acrobat Reader and your web browser to view articles in the browser. To configure your browser, please refer to Adobe Acrobat Reader online support for assistance.

Why won't the document print?
The PDF documents are formatted to work with Adobe Acrobat Reader 5. But it is recommended that you use the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Check the Adobe web site for the latest version. When printing from Windows, some printing problems can be resolved by checking "Print as Image" property on the print screen. Additional support for printing from Acrobat Reader is available at Adobe support. Also, please refer to your printer manufacturer for support.

I'm having trouble signing in. What should I do?
First, make sure you are using the correct username and password. You can request your login information with your email address here.
If you can not sign in with the correct username and password, make sure you have cookies and Javascript enabled on your browser.
If the above does not resolve the issue, please contact us.