It was titled "Pictured" because no other encyclopedia at the time had as large or as diverse a collection of illustrations.

[citation needed] However, in the early 1980s the publishers began a thorough revision under Michael Reed and the contents were brought more up to date.

This included a more egalitarian approach to women's roles in society and revisions of articles such as abortion, adoption, Argentina and the Falkland Islands.

[9] The 1993 print edition of Compton's Encyclopedia had 26 volumes, 9 million words, 10,590 pages, 5,250 articles, 28,750 Fact Index definitions, 450 bibliographies, 22,510 illustrations and maps, 35,500 cross references and 154,000 index entries.

[11] By this time Britannica had invested $13.5 million in revamping the encyclopedia, now under the direction of Dale Good, who became general editor in 1986.

[12] Controversial issues such as AIDS, abortion, adoption, capital punishment, drunk driving, euthanasia, homosexuality, race relations, missing children, sexual harassment, sexually-transmitted disease and women's rights, were given greater coverage.

[14] The pyramid style article format was retained, but italicization of potentially unfamiliar words was dropped for esthetic purposes, though potentially difficult words such as palaeographic, miscarriage and recession were still defined in context.

Subjects that were considered too trendy, ephemeral or minor, that did not have articles in the main text, but did have "Fact-Index" definitions included MTV, Madonna, electric automobiles, Robert Motherwell, motion sickness, Moral Re-Armament and Moultrie, Georgia.

[1] Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. initially owned Compton's Encyclopedia from 1961 to 1993, and later reacquired it in 2002.

Reed coordinated with a team from Jostens Company out of San Diego that actually built the product.