Scanning

Printers and scanners are an absolute necessity in every organization, business, office, educational institution, and more. The numerous brands and features of printers and scanners can vary anywhere from the numerous accessories, to the simplicity of black and white, color or both depending on the intended job.

Printers are available for specific purposes such as printers for mobile receipts, mobile thermal labels, network thermal labels and more. While some scanners can also be used for specific scanning purposes of photos, business cards, documents, and checks. Although some machines can accomplish both jobs of the printer and scanner.

Printers

The print preview option works out to be a great advantage as it helps a person to see how everything would look like in final, hard copy. Another advantage of printers is allowing storage of all the information in files for future reference with an ease and peace of mind that nothing important will be lost.

Laser printers, print quickly while, inkjet printers are cheaper they are slower. Yet, both printers use ink cartridges and will need to be changed. A good sensible solution to dealing with constantly changing cartridges is to use reusable cartridges.

Scanners

Scanners are machines you can scan just about anything and view it in soft copy on your laptop or computer. Meaning important documents like proof of purchase receipts, photos, contracts, and articles from newspapers or magazines, can be scanned and shared over email with friends or colleagues.

Today there are millions of MFPs populating workplaces in every industry. Organizations find MFP scanning appealing because they can combine scanning, copying and printing all on one device. These all-in-one devices allow companies to save money by getting rid of unnecessary technology, increase productivity because of higher page per minute output, and provide a way to add hardcopy documents into their electronic workflows.

With the growth of MFP scanning come questions about how best to utilize and how to take advantage of all the qualities a MFP can provide. Here are a few pointers to take the stress out of implementing an MFP into your document workflow.

· MFPs are not restricted to small-size documents! The MFP document feeder may restrict you to 50 or so pages, but by hitting the “scan more” button you can continue scanning for any number of pages.

· Scanned images from MFPs will not be larger file sizes than images from scanners. MFP scanning software includes image compression so even color pages can be reduced to as little as 200 KB per pages while retaining sharp text and good image quality.

· You can create searchable PDFs with MFP scanning. MFP scanning software allows you to create and save PDFs that are then available for text searches within documents and network folders.

Does your business offer large-format printing services? Here are some key tips and tricks that will help you remain productive when undertaking a large format scanning production and process.

Prep Your Documents. Large-format drawings can require a lot of repair and preparation. Always check for staples and notes—some of which may be attached to the middle of the document—and tape torn edges. If a large document has been rolled up and stored, it may need to be reverse rolled or flattened out for at least 48 hours. Dust can damage a scanner’s glass, so be sure to vacuum stored drawings. Don’t be scared to get out an iron and ironing board to get  drawings flat enough to scan.

Sorting Methods. Determine whether your project’s drawings should be sorted by size and/or by quality. This minimizes the time spent changing settings during the scanning process. Remember that PDF and JPG formats have limitations—up to 100 inches—to scanning.

Drawings-by-Numbers. Consider applying a unique ID number based on project and drawing. Labeled stickers instead of stamps or ink, which bleeds on Mylar, will help identify that the drawing has been scanned. ID numbers also help with quality assurance and avoid duplicating work.

Did you know, on average companies have to hire an additional employee for every 12 filing cabinets simply to maintain organization. This is just the beginning of what it costs to manage paper documents in an increasingly digital world. Whether you are looking for a way to improve personal or professional productivity, capture and distribute paper-based information amongst workgroups, departments, and small businesses, or even blend multiple business applications from networked printers/copiers or scanners, Document Scanning Solutions can securely transform paper documents into business value.

Paperwork is paper that works… Document scanning solutions turn everyday tasks into routine processes that take less time, involve fewer steps, and allow employees to accomplish more. Enabling document scanning services stop the inefficiency inherent in paper files and achieve greater productivity, better information management, and lower overhead expense-a benefit to any bottom line.

Did you know, on average companies have to hire an additional employee for every 12 filing cabinets simply to maintain organization. This is just the beginning of what it costs to manage paper documents in an increasingly digital world. Whether you are looking for a way to improve personal or professional productivity, capture and distribute paper-based information amongst workgroups, departments, and small businesses, or even blend multiple business applications from networked printers/copiers or scanners, Document Scanning Solutions can securely transform paper documents into business value.

Paperwork is paper that works… Document scanning solutions turn everyday tasks into routine processes that take less time, involve fewer steps, and allow employees to accomplish more. Enabling document scanning services stop the inefficiency inherent in paper files and achieve greater productivity, better information management, and lower overhead expense-a benefit to any bottom line.

by Jon Reardon

In an unpublished InfoTrends’ research project conducted slightly more than one year ago, we surveyed the US financial services industry to learn about the adoption rates and technology usage behaviors of office/workgroup document solutions. Compliance matters loomed large in this study.

We surveyed more than 350 businesses in the segments of: banking, insurance, investment, and credit and lending. Approximately 50% of the respondents came from large businesses with 1,000 employees, followed by an even split between medium (100-999) and small (1-99) at 25% each.

If you are looking to implement a scanning solution, it is very important that you have three, very important features. Those features are not scanning to email, scanning to folder and scanning to document management. Then, what do you think they are? Scan to email, folder and document management systems are very important features that can not be over looked. They are never the most critical components, but these are the features that most people consider. Most often, people forget to look at the most critical features first. Most Important Feature 1 - Ease of Use There are so many types of systems out there right now. Some are incredibly complicated. Some required too many buttons to push for something as simple as a scan to email. They require the push of one button to enter an email, the push of another button to add the subject and yet another button to add the note. Not to mention the little screens and virtual keyboards that make any button push cumbersome. Most Important Feature 2 - Tight Integration In order for your scanning solution to be effective, you should look for integration with your current environment. You shouldn’t have to come up with work-arounds to tie it seamlessly to your MS Exchange server. You should be able to send an email from your scanner and have the message appear automatically in your sent items folder. If you want to password protect the system, it should authenticate against your existing server and not have to create a new password system. More over, you want it to integrate with your document management system so that you don’t have to take extra steps to get your documents where you want them when you want them there. But, remember that the definition of "tight" depends on your situation and needs. Don't confuse a product's claim of integration for solving your particular needs. Most Important Feature 3 - Security and Compliance Did you know that most scan to email and scan to folder are open to abuse from malicious users? In most scan to email systems, I can send an email anonymously, or worse, put someone else’s name as the return address? Did you know that in most scan to folder locations, security settings need to be turned off so that scanning can work easily on the network. These problems allow for violations in regulatory compliance with regulations such as HIPAA and SOX. Don’t forget these key features when looking for a scanning solution. – Corey Smith has fifteen years of document management industry experience and maintains the Master the Business blog.

Source: Quocirca Business and IT Analysis

With businesses striving to find ways to increase efficiencies, lower costs and improve productivity, many are looking towards leveraging their investments in digital multifunction peripherals (MFPs) to merge their paper and digital workflows.

Whilst many businesses are moving towards digital document workflows, paper continues to play an important role in many business processes. It is now widely accepted that the paperless office anticipated by the digital age has not materialised, as glancing around any office environment will illustrate.

Growing usage of technologies like email, online collaboration and electronic documents, has driven an increase in paper consumption rather than a reduction. Paper remains the preferred choice of medium for consuming and digesting information - people prefer to read from paper rather than a screen, it is tangible and easy to annotate and is personal and portable. Despite technology advances in e-paper display technology to mimic paper readability on-screen, and e-paper reading devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book, our attachment to paper is likely to long continue.

I know of a lot of people that have a need to create a document as an image. They first print the document then put the document into their scanner so they have an image. I don’t get it.

There are plenty of tools that can be used to create an image of your documents. You could use Adobe Acrobat, eCopy Desktop and a myriad of other tools. You could even use the Microsoft Document Image Writer that comes free with your computer. All you have to do is go to file and select print. Select the Microsoft Document Image Writer as your printer and then choose to save the file as an image that can be converted into a tiff image.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, one choice may be better than another. If you need help, let us know what you want to accomplish and we can give you a solution. You may already have all the technology you need to get it done and all we'll have to do is teach you how to do it.

From ScanGuru

What should a Law Firm look for in a scanning application?

Here are some suggestions:

Barcode Separator Functionality - Separator pages allow the user to insert a specially coded page between documents in a stack. Once scanned, the software uses these pages to determine when a document begins and ends. This allows the scanning of many documents at once, rather than scanning one at a time. There is also the notion of "intelligent separators" which allow you to encode data on the separator page, such as case, matter, attorney, etc.

Image Enhancement - These tools will automatically adjust contrast and brightness, remove problematic colors, remove speckles, and thicken fonts. If you want the highest quality image, with the least amount of scanning operator intervention, this is a key component to any scanning system.