Best way to digitize and archive old paper documents?

3 years ago

Hi all!

I've decided that the hour to re-visit and re-organize the storage room has struck! The trouble is: I got a decent number of boxes brimming with old hard copy documents - most of which I or my father transported there to free up some room in the office. Some of these bad boys are 14-15 years old (thank God we labeled them with the origin year of the documents within). Now, it is time for them to go, I'm afraid - at least regarding their physical form.

So, does anyone has experience in digitizing heaps of old files in a way that they can easily (or semi-easily) track them on a hard drive? I want to set up rules so that each document ends in the right folder instantly, so that all files from the year 2008 go to the same place, for example. Hence, I need software that can catch up on the date of the file and discern its end location. I considered going to a scanning service for this, but given how I'll have to inspect what's inside each of the boxes - I'd rather select what needs saving by myself (it's also cheaper this way). I'm aware that it will be a behemoth of a task, but then again - what do I own I scanner and a shredder for?

Any recommendations are welcome!

Thanks!

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Comments (5)

Alan Strassberg
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
I use this naming technique: YYYYMMDDxxx for example May 4, 2023 first doc is 20230504001 - that way they will sort correctly date-wise in a directory. You could append some text as needed.

Might also look at this free scanner software - works great for OCR or saving to PDF.

https://www.naps2.com/
dadoes
3 years ago
I name scanned document files in the same format as above but use - to separate the YYYY-MM-DD description for easier visibility. Folder name hierarchy of primary to secondaries such as a BankName AccountName Year or UtilityProvider Year, etc.
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julesnbuttons
3 years ago
I got a similar situation at home but I think I will postpone it a bit longer... As for which app you can use, I think any type of document management software can do the trick. I do a lot of scanning in my line of work (invoices mostly) and without such a tool I'll get lost in the first 5 mins. I can also edit the scanned files and search them by content (optical character recognition), which I think will be of great help to you. As for setting up a system that will route the files right after scanning, that'd be the least of your problems :) Look into apps like these: ClickUp, FileCenter, M-files...
oportunitygreentea
Original Author
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Thanks for pitching in guys! I'm about to make a sound plan of action and get dust all over me very soon. While I'm very used to archiving old paper documents in my office, but this is one of the rare occasions where my professional life ends up dominating my weekend as well :) I think I'll give FileCenter a shot for this, I like that UI
wdccruise
3 years ago
You want to be sure to OCR the documents rather than just saving the multi-page image files. Save the scanned and OCR'd documents as pdfs. The OCR process is CPU intensive. Be sure your computer is powerful enough to recognize and OCR the documents efficiently otherwise you'll spend a lot of time waiting.

You need a scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF), not a single-sheet scanner. If documents are double-sided, you need a duplex scanner (example). There are color and black-and-white scanners. Note that color image files can be HUGE. If pages are different sizes, be sure the scanner (and DMS) can handle them.

Some DMS allow you to place separator pages between documents so you can scan them in a batch; the DMS then creates one file for each document. Otherwise you'll have to scan each document (but not page) separately.

It's very useful for the DMS to preview a pdf while allowing you to enter the file name. You may want to rotate page images during preview if they're not all the same. The pdf format allows you to add metadata such as Subject, Creator, and Keywords to files. Those can help you locate documents; otherwise you'll be limited to file name, scan date, and full-text searches.
oportunitygreentea thanked wdccruise