Ten Things You Should Know About Document Imaging

Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) provide overwhelming advantages over paper-based document management

. Its in this context that document imaging comes into the picture these days, converting remaining paper documents into electronic ones.

1. Document imaging is not something new. Copiers, fax machines and microfilming all involved imaging paper documents, with different objectives. What is comparatively new is converting paper documents into full-fledged electronic documents to integrate them into the electronic workflow.

2. The integration into the electronic workflow involves more than just scanning paper documents into a digital image. Electronic documents typically contain computer readable text characters. The text in the scanned images is in graphic formats that cannot be read as characters by the computer.

3. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) programs convert text images into ASCII or Unicode formats that are readable by computers as text characters. The system can then index the documents by its content and make it an integral part of the workflow.

4. The indexing can also be based on metadata attached to the document. In such a context, the metadata can be bar-coded on the document by affixing a standard barcode card or by other means and then a barcode indexer can index the documents.

5. In large enterprises, documents are typically being generated at widely dispersed locations and these can be immediately accessible from anywhere only if they are in electronic form. Paper documents are imaged and processed at the originating stations and the resulting electronic documents can then go to the central storage at the enterprise headquarters, making them accessible from anywhere in the enterprise or through authorized handheld devices in the field

6. An incidental benefit of converting paper documents into electronic format is the consequent reduction in paper requirements. The original paper documents can be shredded and recycled. Such recycling has great environmental significance.

7. Document imaging also reduces storage media costs. Paper document storage and retrieval requires an elaborate setup involving paper folders, filing cabinets, filing section staff and constant transportation of documents from filing section to users and back.

8. Documents in electronic formats can be backed up and the backups can be stored off-site so that natural disasters like fire or floods that affect the primary site do not affect the backups. Disaster recovery is much faster and dependable in such a context compared to a paper-based system disaster.

9. Yet another benefit from document imaging and conversion of documents into electronic is the speed of document retrieval. Electronic retrieval of documents for litigation or audit purposes is dramatically speedier than physical retrieval of paper documents stored somewhere in the filing cabinets.

10. Imaging large volumes of documents can be handled using batch scanning techniques with adequate, advance preparation. Batch scanning can automate the scanning process, and the result can be satisfactory in issues like configuring the scanner to handle different size documents, separating documents into relevant categories using separators and preparing the documents for scanning by removing staples and paper clips.

Document imaging produces concrete benefits in the forms of speeding up the workflow, reducing storage media and paper handling costs, speedy recovery of needed documents in electronic discovery and reducing the ecological impact of high paper consumption.

by: Manuel J. Montesino

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