What is considered document imaging?
Document imaging can be defined as the conversion of paper documents into electronic files that are stored digitally. By storing these images in a digital format, quick and easy access is at your fingertips. More and more businesses are realizing that document imaging is a better alternative to the old-fashioned (and outdated) paper filing systems. A few advantages of document imaging are:
- Reduced printing and storage costs
- Having data backups for critical documents
- Eliminating time spent looking for files
- Improved data security
- Added productivity
- Allowing central access to your employees across a network
- Better customer service
Documents can be scanned and electronically transformed into a high-resolution image that is saved on a computer hard drive, network server, or optical disk. Breakthroughs in scanning technology have made turning paper documents into digital images quick, simple, and, perhaps most importantly, cost-effective.
Electronic index cards can attribute info to a document like an author, reference number, or date created. Files can still be viewed, printed, shared, and stored, but imaging offers the added advantage of providing fast and easy document searching. The document's text is read by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which allows users to find files by searching with keywords, by folder location, or by index card data.
