Make your paper file cabinets searchableHow to manage paper and electronic documents effectively

Presented by Beaupix Studio

Fashion, commercial, advertising, headshot, and wedding photography in Boston, Massachu-setts.

Make your paper file cabinets searchable

How to manage paper and electronic documents effectively

Revision 1.1

Ryuji Suzuki

Need awesome headshots in Boston?

License

©2009 by Ryuji Suzuki. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution–Noncommercial–No 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?

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

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?

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?

Paper problems

• Bulky. Heavy. −→×mobility

• Not easily searchable −→×usability ×accessibility

• Can be sorted and indexed for search−→ ×requires upfront investment

• Creates “digital divide” −→ Stay in the easy world

Make paper file cabinets searchable Planning a fashion-oriented event in Boston?

Solution

1. Digitize paper documents

2. Make the documents searchable

3. Manage the digital version with database and localsearch engine

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

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?

Input OutputProcessingStorage

keyboardmousetabletstylus

microphonecamera

hard driveUSB driveCD, DVD

network storage

computer

database

searchengines

CRTLCD

speechsynthesizer

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

Input Output

Processing

Storage

Pen Paper

Human Brain+

Physical movement of paper

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

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.

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!

Hybrid solution

• Keep paper as an input/output media

• Digitize paper-based documents

• Make documents searchable

• Stay in digital domain for storage and search

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

Input OutputProcessingStorage

keyboardmousetabletstylus

microphonecamera

hard driveUSB driveCD, DVD

network storage

computer

database

searchengines

CRTLCD

speechsynthesizer

pen Paper

Scanner Printer Recycle

OCR

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

OCR: Optical Character Recognition

• Recognizes text in the scanned images and generatesearchable plain text.

• Accuracy is less than 100%.

• Insufficient to use alone, but useful as an auxiliarydata for search engines to find keyword match.

• Solution: keep the scanned image and overlaytransparent layer of OCR text.

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

Scanner

OCR engine

Paper

PDF image

PDF image+

text

Human-readablefacsimile image

Facsimile image +searchable text(transparent overlay)in a single PDF fileComputer can perform

keyword search on these!

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

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 whenprocessing a small amount of document at a time.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Planning a fashion-oriented event in Boston?

OCR: Recommendation (2)

Some OCR engines resample and reencode the imagedata−→Quality loss. File size may increase if thereencoder use a poor set of encoding parameters.

Short answer: The OCR engine in Adobe Acrobat ispretty good. Use it without re-encoding.

Note: Acrobat lets you control major parameters.Many other softwares decide them for you, poorly!

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

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.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Portrait photographer in Boston?

What you need

1. A document scanner ($300–500 for personal models,$1500–3000 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.

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

Document scanners• Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M (Mac), S510 (Windows)

• Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M (Mac), S300 (Windows)

• Canon imageFORMULA DR–2010C, DR–2050C

• Canon imageFORMULA ScanFront 220 (Network Scanner)

• HP Scanjet 7800, N6010, N7710

Key factors: OS, footprint, price, interface (USB, network, USB

memory), scan speed, feeder capacity, multi-feed detection,

bundled software.

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

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 tomake them searchable (OCR on Acrobat).

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

Make paper file cabinets searchable All images worth price charged.

Prioritize Work

• Stuff you don’t need at all−→Recycle.

• Stuff you keep but probably won’t use−→Don’t invest morework than necessary.

• Stuff you need and probably will use−→Organize and scansimultaneously.

• Stuff you use frequently−→Invest more work to organize.

• Handwritten stuff−→requires some manual sorting andindexing.

Make paper file cabinets searchable Enhance your advertising with photography!

Workload estimate

• Initial phase: digitize existing paper documents.

– One drawer of a file cabinet takes about 4–6 hours,once you get used to the task.

– Important documents should be double checkedfor page skipping, etc., before destroying theoriginal documents.

• Once file cabinets are removed, daily work andmaintenance are minimal.

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

Once you’ve 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 pileon your desk or file cabinet; recycle paper often.

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

Once you’ve 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 usersgrow)

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

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 scaleswell for individual offices

Make paper file cabinets searchable Planning a fashion-oriented event in Boston?

Remember!

• Backup often.

• Beware of information security (secure yourcomputer, encrypt sensitive documents).

• Secure your office (anyone can search and steal yourdocuments quickly).

• Consider having a backup document scanner of thesame model.

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

Extra Topics

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

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)

Make paper file cabinets searchable Portrait photographer in Boston?

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

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.

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

Oversize pages

• Carrier sheets (ScanSnap models)

• Scan piecewise and stitch them (photomerge).

• Tabloid flatbed scanners (expensive)

• Take photographs (tricky!)

• Reduction photocopy (wasteful)

Make paper file cabinets searchable All images worth price charged.

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

Make paper file cabinets searchable Enhance your advertising with photography!

Sync your computers

Digital environment allows you to have your homedirectory synchronized among multiple computers:

• Home computer

• Lab/office computer

• Laptop

−→ Synchronize files all directions (use Unison).

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

Questions?

Contact Ryuji Suzuki through the website.

This author is active in the field of photography and imagingtechnology consulting.

Footnote advertising in this presentation is for Beaupix Studio inBoston, Massachusetts. Beaupix Studio serves the field of fashion,commercial, advertising, glamour, headshot, weddingphotography. Please visit http://beaupix.com.

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

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

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

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 “BicubicDownsampling to” 150 to 400dpi (depending on desired image quality) and “JBIG2” and “Lossy.” This is the mostefficient 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 efficientcompression as JBIG2. Therefore, in the interest of disk space, choose b&w document mode whenever it issufficient, 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.

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