Document Imaging and Scanning Have Almost Become Synonymous

Document imaging can involve photocopying and microfilm or microfiche output, in addition to scanning into digital images. However document imaging and scanning have become so closely associated as to become synonymous.

The reason could be that scanning is the primary step in transferring paper-based information into the electronic content repositories of modern organizations. Under today's Enterprise Content Management systems, electronic content is the lifeblood that drives business operations.

How Does Scanning Transfer Info Into Electronic Workflow?

Scanning alone cannot put paper-based information into the electronic workflow. What scanning does is to create a digital image of a paper document. This image can be a "pure" image like the image of a photograph; or it can be the image of a text document.

While the images of text documents can be read by humans, they are just images to computers. Computers capture images in a bitmap format while text is based on ASCII, Unicode, and other character standards. The two formats are very different. Images of a page can take up to 50 times the space required for an ASCII text page.

To make the text machine-readable, further processing is required. Such processing involves using character recognition technologies like OCR and ICR. With these technologies, the images can be converted into true text documents that can be indexed.

Indexing is the step that makes the document an integral part of the electronic content. Indexing involves categorizing the document based on the full text or meta information attached to the document. Indexed documents can be retrieved through searching by the words in the text or meta keywords.

Why Transfer to 'Electronic Workflow'?

What is the significance of transferring paper-based documents into the electronic workflow? The answer is that the benefits are many.

Firstly, electronic content can be retrieved in a few seconds with a few keystrokes at your computer workstation. Retrieval of paper documents would involve going to the file room, identifying the particular filing cabinet, retrieving the right folder, locating the particular document, taking it back to the workstation, and then putting it back into the folder/filing cabinet/file room.

Considering all the hassle of retrieving paper documents, people might just avoid it while making quick decisions. The result would be low-quality decision making. Decisions would be hunch-based instead of informed.

Next comes the distributed accessibility of the content, particularly relevant in the case of global enterprises. Electronic content can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

Security and safety are also improved when electronic content is used. It is easier to control access to electronic info using access rights and password-based access. Electronic content is also less prone to damage from humidity and disasters such as fires and floods (backups can be stored in a different location without too much hassle).

Cost is another factor favoring electronic content. With electronic copies available, much of the original paper documents can be shredded once they are scanned. This saves on filing cabinets and expensive file-room space.

Conclusion

With the innumerable advantages of moving paper-based content into an electronic workflow, modern enterprises have universally adopted this strategy. The primary step for such paper-to-electronic information movement is scanning. Document imaging and scanning have now come to mean almost the same thing these days.