4 Things to Figure Out Before Starting a Document Scanning Project

15 April 2020
 Categories: Business, Blog

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Document scanning work is about more than hiring a company that has the resources to tackle the job. To handle a project competently, you need to be able to plan and contribute some input. If you want to be your document scanning provider's favorite customer, here are four pre-project issues you should attempt to address.

Know Your Preferred File Formats

The simplest and lowest-storage way to collect all your files is in a lossy, compressed image format like JPEG. For organizations that need to keep very precise records, it may be necessary to use a lossless and large image format such as TIFF or RAW.

If you're planning to use OCR to convert your files to readable digital text documents like Microsoft's DOC or Adobe's PDF, it's wise to understand the limitations. Particularly, OCR systems will misread occasional characters and garble a few others. That's especially the case with documents that are smudged to faded. If you need to retain copies for legal or archival reasons, you may want to use an OCR method alongside a high-quality digital image format to provide references that future viewers can compare to the rendered text.

Do Simple Calculations

An archival file box will usually hold between 2,500 and 3,000 pages. This largely depends on how many dividers and folders are eating up space between them—that's why 2,500 pages is a good number to work with. Note that these pages are your typical A4-style letter sheets of 20- to 24-pound paper.

You can extrapolate a rough estimate based on how many boxes you have. If you have 15 boxes, for example, that means you ought to have 37,500 pages.

Eliminate Unnecessary Scanning

If possible, try to focus on doing document scanning only for necessary items. It's not wise to get gung-ho with shredding documents, especially given the potential legal ramifications of destroying important items, so understand what your compliance and retention requirements are before sorting pages out.

Have a Plan for Managing Electronic Documents

You should have a sufficient digital storage solution in place before doing document scanning work. It's wise to have the scanning services provider perform a few scans of typical documents in your preferred formats and at your preferred quality levels. You can then use the largest file sizes to estimate how much digital storage space you'll require. It's also prudent to have a data backup system lined up in case your primary digital storage solution fails.

If you're ready to finish a document scanning project, contact services like Indigital Inc.