Digital Document Management

8/14/2019 Digital Document Management

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Make your paper fle cabinetssearchable

How to manage paper and electronic

documents effectively

Presented by Beaupix Studio

Fashion, commercial, advertising, headshot, and

wedding photography in Boston, Massachu-setts.


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Make your paper file cabinets searchable

How to manage paper and electronic documents effectively

Revision 1.1

Ryuji Suzuki

Need awesome headshots in Boston?
http://beaupix.com/headshots.htmlhttp://beaupix.com/headshots.html


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License

2009 by Ryuji Suzuki. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under theCreative Commons AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, SanFrancisco, California, 94105, USA.

This work was previously presented at a workshop hosted by the MIT Libraries.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Want to make eye-catching advertising photography in Boston?
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/


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http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/


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My Background

Photographer Terabytes of images, boxes of negatives.

A wide range of interests: information sponge, news junkie.

Have used search technology since mid 1990s.

Used to have many file cabinets.

Still have 4 big book shelves.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Need a skilled commercial photographer in Boston?


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How do we store information?

Loose paper documents in folders or binders

Magazines, journals, newsletters

Books

Electronic files (PDF, HTML, RTF, DOC, etc.)

Make paper file cabinets searchable Need a nice wedding photographer in Boston?


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Paper problems

Bulky. Heavy. mobility

Not easily searchable usabilityaccessibility

Can be sorted and indexed for search

requires upfront investment

Creates digital divide Stay in the easy world

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Solution

1. Digitize paper documents

2. Make the documents searchable

3. Manage the digital version with database and local

search engine

Make paper file cabinets searchable Wedding photographer for fashion-conscious people in Boston


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Before moving on. . .

The idea of paperless office failed in the past.

Paper is not at fault; the way we use it is.

What roles does paper have?How do they compare to computer system?

Make paper file cabinets searchable Portrait photographer in Boston?


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Input OutputProcessingStorage

keyboardmousetabletstylus

microphonecamera

hard driveUSB driveCD, DVD

networkstorage

computer

database

searchengines

CRTLCD

speechsynthesizer

Make paper file cabinets searchable Want to make eye-catching advertising photography?


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Input Output

Processing

Storage

Pen Paper

Human Brain+

Physical movement

of paper

Make paper file cabinets searchable Creative and experienced headshot photographer in Boston


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Paper: strength

In small scale, paper is:

Cheap

Portable

Human-friendly, human-readable, human-writable

Paper is good as an i/o device in small scale.

Make paper file cabinets searchable All images worth price charged.


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Paper: weakness

In large scale, paper is:

Bulky (low information density)

Not searchable (lacks computational power)

Not easy to distribute or back up

Paper is a poor storage device.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Enhance your advertising with photography!


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Hybrid solution

Keep paper as an input/output media

Digitize paper-based documents

Make documents searchable

Stay in digital domain for storage and search



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Input OutputProcessingStorage

keyboardmousetabletstylus

microphonecamera

hard driveUSB driveCD, DVD

networkstorage

computer

database

searchengines

CRTLCD

speechsynthesizer

pen Paper

Scanner Printer Recycle

OCR



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OCR: Optical Character Recognition

Recognizes text in the scanned images and generate

searchable plain text.

Accuracy is less than 100%.

Insufficient to use alone, but useful as an auxiliary

data for search engines to find keyword match.

Solution: keep the scanned image and overlay

transparent layer of OCR text.



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Scanner

OCR engine

Paper

PDF image

PDF image

+

text

Human-readable

acsimile image

Facsimile image +

searchable text

(transparent overlay)in a single PDF fleComputer can perorm

keyword search on these!

http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/


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OCR: Recommendation (1)

OCR process is computationally intensive; it takes along time to finish on a large number of documents.

Common strategies:

1. Run OCR in a batch when you leave office.

2. Run OCR in background.

Option 1 is more primitive but easy to recover in caseof errors. Option 2 is more convenient when

processing a small amount of document at a time.



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OCR: Recommendation (2)

Some OCR engines resample and reencode the image

dataQuality loss. File size mayincrease if the

reencoder use a poor set of encoding parameters.

Short answer: The OCR engine in Adobe Acrobat is

pretty good. Use it without re-encoding.

Note: Acrobat lets you control major parameters.

Many other softwares decide them for you, poorly!



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Advantages of the hybrid solution

Search instantly: papers, invoices, client case files, etc.

Unify management of paper and digital documents.

Archived information gets used more.

Freedom to collect more information.

Gain mobility. Retrieve your floor and hallway space.

Avoid frustration at jammed photocopiers.

Lose fax machines. Submit p-set from your bedroom.



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What you need

1. A document scanner ($300500 for personal models,$15003000 for networked group scanner)

2. Adobe Acrobat for OCR

3. A document search engine or database software

Spotlight (Mac OS)

DEVONthink (Mac Application) Windows options: google desktop, etc.



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Document scanners

Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M (Mac), S510 (Windows)

Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M (Mac), S300 (Windows)

Canon imageFORMULA DR2010C, DR2050C

Canon imageFORMULA ScanFront 220 (Network Scanner)

HP Scanjet 7800, N6010, N7710

Key factors: OS, footprint, price, interface (USB, network, USBmemory), scan speed, feeder capacity, multi-feed detection,

bundled software.



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Workflow

1. Roughly organize papers in categories by date,volume, access frequency, value, and subject.

2. Scan each document, one folder per category.

3. At the end of the day, batch process the PDF files to

make them searchable (OCR on Acrobat).

4. Take the documents in to your favorite documentdatabase/search engine.



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Prioritize Work

Stuff you dont need at allRecycle.

Stuff you keep but probably wont useDont invest more

work than necessary.

Stuff you need and probably will useOrganize and scan

simultaneously.

Stuff you use frequentlyInvest more work to organize.

Handwritten stuffrequires some manual sorting and

indexing.



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Workload estimate

Initial phase: digitize existing paper documents.

One drawer of a file cabinet takes about 46 hours,

once you get used to the task.

Important documents should be double checked

for page skipping, etc., before destroying the

original documents.

Once file cabinets are removed, daily work and

maintenance are minimal.



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Once youve gone digital (1)

This will change the way you work in your office.

You will be:

scanning documents, not photocopying, for records.

printing necessary pages or sections of a document,

not the whole document.

finished work goes back into the computer, not a pile

on your desk or file cabinet; recycle paper often.



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Once youve gone digital (2)

When you rearrange your office, consider to get:

a desktop document scanner

a small document printer within your office

one, two or three 24" or 30" LCD screens

an extra fast, network-connected document scanners (if users

grow)



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Some numbers

Each file cabinet drawer 3GB.

A 32GB USB thumb drive 10+ drawers.

A 500GB pocket hard drive 137+ drawers.

An internal 1.5TB hard drive 465+ drawers.

Digital management of paper documents scales

well for individual offices



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Remember!

Backup often.

Beware of information security (secure your

computer, encrypt sensitive documents).

Secure your office (anyone can search and steal your

documents quickly).

Consider having a backup document scanner of the

same model.



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Extra Topics



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Books

Commercial books in print:

Buy in PDF form if available

Cut the binding and scan through document scanner

Out-of-print books, valuable books:

Use a book scanner (OpticBook series)



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OpticBook 3600

The only solution available for individual users.

Scanning area comes very close to the edge.

Functions are well designed.

A bit too slow.

Software runs only on Windows.

Software is buggy.



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Oversize pages

Carrier sheets (ScanSnap models)

Scan piecewise and stitch them (photomerge).

Tabloid flatbed scanners (expensive)

Take photographs (tricky!) Reduction photocopy (wasteful)



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Non-OCRable material

Handwritten notes

Texts of minor languages

Photographs of non-textual items

What to do?

Use stamps, stickers or notepads with pre-printed keywords

Manually tag with keywords



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Sync your computers

Digital environment allows you to have your home

directory synchronized among multiple computers:

Home computer

Lab/office computer

Laptop

Synchronize files all directions (use Unison).



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Questions?

Contact Ryuji Suzuki through the website.

This author is active in the field of photography and imaging

technology consulting.

Footnote advertising in this presentation is for Beaupix Studio in

Boston, Massachusetts. Beaupix Studio serves the field of fashion,

commercial, advertising, glamour, headshot, wedding

photography. Please visit http://beaupix.com.

http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/http://beaupix.com/


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Batch OCR with Acrobat

Create an OCR batch profile (do it once):

1. Advanced Document Processing Batch Processing

2. New Sequence: give your OCR profile a name

3. Add Recognize Text Using OCR from left panel.

4. Click on the Edit button, select English (US) and Searchable Image (Exact) from the pulldown menu.

This setting does not resample the original image.5. Ok to save the profile setting. Set output options as desired.

Run OCR:

1. Advanced Document Processing Batch Processing

2. Select your OCR profile

3. Run it



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Compress PDF file size with Acrobat

For b&w documents, a highly efficient data compression called JBIG2 is available in Acrobat. Select Advanced PDF Optimizer. Select Images in the left panel, and look at Monochrome Images section. Choose Bicubic

Downsampling to 150 to 400dpi (depending on desired image quality) and JBIG2 and Lossy. This is the most

efficient data compression for binary b&w images from a scanner.

In contrast, color and grayscale images can only use JPEG compression, and it does not offer nearly as efficient

compression as JBIG2. Therefore, in the interest of disk space, choose b&w document mode whenever it is

sufficient, as scanned color and grayscale documents will take much larger disk space.

Another useful function is Document Optimize Scanned PDF. This function used to work very well in Acrobat

7 Professional, but not in Acrobat 9 Pro, due to change in the implementation of the edge processing. If your

document contains very wide margin, this may still work well. If it does, you gain very compact PDF file size.


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Digital Document Management