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The Essentials of Document Conversion
Document Conversion Basics
As the size of your organization grows, the number of files and the time and expense of managing them grows too. Most organizations start off with very manual methods to handle this type of information. Document conversion services combined with document management systems and solutions can deliver rapid improvement in the way your organization processes information. You'll employ document conversion techniques to remove paper from your environment and you'll then have the ability to quickly search, retrieve and share information that sits within a common document management repository. This article will provide you with information on what document conversion is and how document management systems work.
Document Management Begins with Document Conversion
Effective document management usually starts with document conversion services that transform paper documents into digital, electronic documents and extracted data associated with each digital document. Once your paper is digitally converted, the images can be easily indexed and ingested into a document management software application so that they can be quickly searched and retrieved by end users.
Easy Search and Retrieval Starts with Proper Indexing During the Document Conversion Phase
A well thought out and optimized document management system enables users to find what they want when they want it. Easy search and retrieval of information from a document management application starts with document conversion and properly indexing and extracting metadata related to each individual image digitally converted.
Metadata is defined as “data about the data”. Metadata examples include a purchase order number, an account number, date or first and last name associated with a particular piece of business information. Any type of data that an end user could use when searching for a document from a document management application could be considered metadata. Metadata is indexed and associated with a document during the document conversion process.
Full text indexing takes advantage of optical character recognition (OCR) technologies. OCR enables organizations to extract every piece of data from a document during the document conversion process. Full text indexing then enables users to conduct searches against any piece of information that is contained within a document.
Retrieval is when the quality of the indexing system deployed during the document conversion phase becomes most evident. If indexing keywords is deployed during the document conversion step, users will need to know how a document was categorized and what fields were assigned to it in order to find the document. If OCR and full text indexing is deployed, users will be able to find any document even if all they know is a word or short phrase within the document. Whatever the combination of indexing methodologies, search methods need to be easily used and understood by the people who retrieve the documents, as well as those who file them.
A Note on Electronic File Document Conversion
When people and organizations think of document conversion services, the conversion of paper to digital is often what comes to mind first. However, document conversion services can also include the process of converting electronic digital files (e.g. word processor, spreadsheets) into a permanent, raster-image format for storage and archival within a document management system. For example, Windows applications (Word, Excel) can print existing files into an unalterable image of the document (typically stored as a Tagged Image File Format – TIFF). In many cases, the document conversion process will also extract the text from the document, avoiding the need to use optical character recognition (OCR) document conversion technologies. This text file is then full-text indexed so that retrieval of information from the document can be completed very easily. Organizations that employ electronic file document conversion techniques can bypass any paper scanning processes, saving ink, paper and labor.
