Ask the editor

About us

Document Management Information Links

Getting Started

Build your own document imaging system

Document Management Consulting  Services

 Document Imaging News Frequently Ask Questions

Q. What is the standard format used to store images?

A.  Black and white images are most commonly stored as standard TIFF files using CCITT Group 4 (two-dimensional) compression. Grayscale and color images are frequently stored as TIFF files with JPEG compression.

A. Document scanning is the process of using document scanning software and high-speed document scanners to convert an image of the paper to a digital picture. These electronic images can then be indexed and stored in a document storage system which gives your users the ability to search through millions of documents in a matter of seconds.

 Q. What is scanning software?

A.  Scanning software is a tool which enables the computer to take a digital image (or picture) of a document.  This software identifies optimums in shading, clarity, contrast and brightness enabling the hardware to make appropriate adjustments during processing to ensure the most crisp image display possible.

Q. Can I edit or alter images?

A. An imaging system should not provide any facility for editing or altering images. This is important as many users consider that images should be sacrosanct and that any changes would undermine the integrity of the system. In addition, the system should provide an audit trail function to keep track of which users have accessed which documents at what times.

Q. What is blank page removal?

 A.  Blank page removal allows the user to scan a mixture of simplex and duplex documents, and have the images removed that do not contain any useful text data (for instance, the back side of a simplex page). This process happens during scan time and is a function of the scanning software.

Q. What is the difference between COLD and imaging?

A.  Imaging is for scanning, compressing, storing, indexing,  searching and viewing paper documents or electronic documents archived as permanent images. COLD is for archiving, indexing, searching and printing reports from  text files generated by mainframes, mini-computers and other computer applications. COLD stores  report files and extracted index fields on hard disk, optical cartridge or CD-ROM instead of printing all the information out on paper or storing it to microfilm.

Q. How much disk space does an imaging system typically require?

A.  With the rapid drop in prices for hard drives and optical media, it costs much less to store documents on an imaging system than with paper. A single page typically occupies around 50KB of disk space if the image is stored in TIFF Group IV. Each gigabyte (GB) of storage space  will hold approximately 20,000 pages.