Scanning
Using paper documents concurrently with electronic documents can be a daunting task for your business. Regardless of the integration challenges, electronic integration of documents is where document management is heading. Multifunction systems offer an easy approach to the digital integration of your paper documents. Multifunction Systems allow you to use the tools of the future today.
Scanning Documents
Scanning documents is now a necessity in businesses of all types. It is vital that businesses have the capability to convert paper-based information into an easily transferable form. In addition, with the increased use of color documents in our businesses today, faxing documents often will not work. With a multifunction system, creating an electronic document from a paper-based document has never been easier… whether it's color or black and white.
Scan to Email
Scan to email is the most common form of scanning today. it can provide the greatest efficiency improvement in any organization. As more of your customers are expecting to receive documentation via email, scanning to email is rapidly becoming a more critical business requirement. The scan to email function of most multifunction systems will allow for LDAP connectivity (the ability to utilize corporate address books), authentication to prevent unauthorized accesses and the ability to communicate directly with the intended recipient.
Scan to File
Scan to file is the simplest form of scanning. Our multifunction system allow for the scanning of any paper-based document to virtually any network folder. The scan to location can be any network shared folder, internet folder (FTP) or a user’s individual desktop.
Scan to OCR
Scan to OCR (optical character recognition) allows for users to convert their scanned documents into word editing application such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect. Charts and tables can even be scanned into applications such as Microsoft Excel. Users can then edit the documents as they would any other text or spreadsheet document. Using OCR, there is no need to go through the hassle of retyping the document. OCR allows your key users to focus time on business productivity instead of recreating a document simply for the purpose of editing a few simple lines of text.
Scan to Electronic Document Management
Scan to electronic document management systems (EDMS) is quickly becoming a common requirement for businesses. As businesses want to streamline their workflow processes and make documents available to more users with greater security, they are implementing more and more sophisticated electronic document management systems. In many cases, it is possible to name and index files directly at the multifunction system’s interface for added document storage efficiency. Utilizing this same technology, it is even possible, in some cases, to scan directly to any ODBC compliant database.
Common File Formats
Our devices scan to common file formats including:- PDF (Portable Document Format) is becoming widely accepted as the standard for viewing documents online. The viewer required (Acrobat Reader) is a free download and easy for end users to learn.
- TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) has been the de-facto standard in document management systems for years. Both Macintosh and Windows file systems have the ability to view this document file format often with no additional reader or download necessary.
- JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) has been the standard file format for digital graphics files. This is the most common file format utilized in digital cameras today.
Scanning Methods
There are two different models that can be employed for scanning. These methods are centralized (pull) or decentralized (push). Each method has advantages and disadvantages.
- Pull Scanning – documents are gathered to one location allowing one operator to scan many sets of documents quickly. This is typically the most efficient method for scanning large quantities of documents in a very short period of time.
- Push Scanning – this is often referred to as convenience scanning. Smaller workgroups can convert paper-based documents to electronic documents utilized a multifunction system allowing the documents to be “pushed” to a given location such as scan to email, scan to folder or scan to document management system.