Many organizations use their business copier machines more and more for document scanning. It seems as though every company and organization is making an effort to do more scanning. There are a number of features available on most copier machines that make this scanning easier and more efficient. Review the list below to learn about the scanning capabilities that can benefit your organization.
Dual Side Scanning of 2 sided documents
Many of the copier machines being manufactured today, have optional document feeders that will scan both sides of a 2 sided original in a single pass through the feeder. Not only does this single pass scanning double the speed in which you can scan 2 sided originals, it also improves the reliability of the scanning process. This is achieved by eliminating the cumbersome step of having to turn over and re-feed documents back through the document feeder, to scan the second side of the original. If your company works with a lot of 2 sided documents you may want to investigate a machine that offers this dual side scanning.
Job Building
Frequently companies have a need to scan multiple documents that can’t be run through the automatic document feeder such as checks, time cards, receipts and individual pages of a book or bound set of copies. Many copier machines offer the ability to job build or separately scan individual items and then combine these individual items into a single PDF file that can be sent to the scan folder.
Encrypt and Password Protect Scanned Documents
Many of the documents being scanned today are of a sensitive and confidential nature. In addition many companies have HIPPA compliance issues that require certain type of documents to be encrypted and or password protected. Most copier machines have the ability to encrypt and or password protect scanned documents during the scanning process.
Name Your Documents as They Are Scanned
Frequently organizations have multiple users scan documents into a shared scan folder on a server. This can be confusing when attempting to locate a specific scanned file. This is because most copier machines assign a generic file name when scanning unless directed otherwise. Fortunately, most copier machines have the ability to assign a name to documents as they are being scanned simplifying the task of locating a specific document in a shared folder environment.
OCR – Optical Character Recognition
With all of the scanning being done by many companies today, it can become more and more challenging to find a specific document among the many thousands of files saved on a server or computer. Many copier machines offer an optional feature called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) at the time of scanning. OCR will create a PDF document that can be located by searching for any word or phrase contained within a document. Without using OCR feature a PDF document is only an image file and is not search-able by the content within the document. OCR can greatly improve the speed in which organizations can locate specific files stored on their servers.
If your organization is one that is scanning and archiving more and more documents then you might benefit from some or all of the features outlined above. There are additional ways that you can improve the speed, quality, editing and search ability of your documents. Contact us your copier machine provider to learn more about how we can best support your scanning needs.
