Ever since personal computers started becoming ubiquitous necessities of home and office, there has been talk of the rise of the “paperless world”

– one in which digital documents and electronic communication take the place of the reams of paper that currently store the records of our lives and businesses.

Converting your paper records to digital ones might take a little time, but the benefits of doing so are many.  Most significantly, you will save a lot of space. 

A stack of compact disks is much easier to store than even one box of papers.  They are easier to move, too, and you won’t have to worry about the cardboard box getting damaged or your files getting disordered in an accident. 

Electronic files are easy to access and copy if you need to provide them to someone, and it is a simple matter to copy a whole disk if you need the security of a back-up but don’t have room for a second file cabinet.

get organised

Before you power up your scanner, take sometime to organize your plan of attack.  Which files are you going to archive?  How will you organize the scanned files? Will you organize them by subject (Tax Records, Payroll Records, Medical Expenses), or by date?  Whichever way you choose, be consistent throughout your archiving effort, so that you may easily locate needed files in the future.

Also, decide upon a file-naming scheme and stick to it.  Always use file names that clearly identify what might be inside, not obscure combinations of number and letters that may make sense to you now, but could lose their meaning in a few years.  For example, if you are scanning your old records from the same year, you might label different files:

• Taxes Forms   
• Medical Records   
• Expenses Receipts

and so on.

Have all the papers you want to scan in one session ready to go before you start.  If your papers are all of the same size and in relatively good condition, you can use an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) to ease the task for you. 

Just be sure to remove all staples and paperclips and smooth out any folds and creases in the paper, to avoid jams.

When you are ready to scan, you will need to decide whether you plan on scanning the documents as images or with Optical Character Recognition (OCR).  The advantage of OCR is that documents are converted to an editable format, which is useful if they are documents you want to alter.  If you are scanning your documents with OCR, save the files in the format of whatever application you will be using to edit them.  However, if you are creating an archive you most likely want to maintain the integrity of the records you are preserving, in which case you should scan them as images. 

Scan the documents at a size and resolution that will make them useful to you in the future.  Keeping in mind that you may have to print them out some day, it is probably a good idea to have a minimum resolution of 150 ppi, though 300 ppi might be better for documents with especially fine print.  Scan them at the actual dimension of the object in order to be able to reproduce it accurately if needed.  Don’t forget to scan both front and back.

If you are saving your documents as images, you have several choices for file formats.  Bitmap (.bmp) is the native image format for the Windows operating system, and will provide images of high quality.  Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) are also very detailed, and unlike the bitmap file format, it’s supported across most operating systems.  However, both bitmap and tiff files are very large; if you choose to save your archive in one of these formats, it will take more disk space to do so.  Alternatively, you could save your files in the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format, which compresses the data somewhat, but is generally sufficient for most uses.

storing

When you’ve finished scanning your documents, you’re ready to transfer them to a storage device.  Ideally, you will be able to save them to CD, because they have the highest storage capacity and can be read by nearly any computer.  However, Zip disks and even floppies will work just as well if that is all you have available.

Create clearly labelled folders on your disk in which to store the files you have created.  And, when you have completed transferring the files to the disk, be sure to label the disk and it’s case too.  Spend a little extra time now making sure everything is properly marked, instead of spending a lot of time later when it’s time to dig it out.  If you’re saving especially important information, make a copy of the disk and keep it in a separate location from the original, such as a safety deposit box or safe, to protect your records from theft or disaster.

It can be confusing to know, sometimes, how long you need to retain the records you have saved.  Some tax records, for example, only need to be kept three years, while for others it is four, and some should be kept forever.  By transferring your records to a digital archive, you can keep your records indefinitely without having to give up a lot of space to do so.

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