One of the most important equipment all offices and businesses should have is a scanner. Since there are many hard documents or copies that need to be converted into soft or electronic data so that they can be stored safely digitally, this equipment is really important to have in any work or business premises. Any important document that also needs to be sent electronically to clients or customers, employees, business partners and other persons involved in your company would also have to be converted into soft copies first before they can be sent and of course, the reliable scanner is needed for this essential task.

Since they are regular staples in many offices and homes and you use them frequently, you may think that you are an “expert” in using them. However, to make sure that you do have scanned documents that are clear and the best splitting images of the original ones, you need to follow the basic tips in doing this task.

Basic Tips For Properly Scanning Documents

Below are some of the basic yet essential tips you should follow to correctly scan documents for any reason or purpose:

• For documents that you need to scan that are mainly composed of text such as contracts or receipts, use the lowest DPI on commercial printers, which is 300 DPI. With a 300 DPI scanned document, the text will display and print properly.

• To produce reprints, double the DPI to 600 to achieve the “original” look. When you have already applied the appropriate DPI, save the document in PDF. If you want to further customise or edit the text for better clarity or readability, use the Optical Character Recognition or OCR feature of the scanner before saving the scanned document.

• For coloured documents or images or documents with coloured photographs, use a 600 DPI. If you want the images or colours to come out more vibrant and have better overall quality, increase to DPI to 1200 and save the file in .PNG format. If you will be using these coloured documents or images for Web display, reduce the DPI to 300 then save in PDF. You can also further enhance the images by playing with the features provided for image customisation, such as colour intensity controls, cropping or resizing.

• For scanning grayscale documents or documents or photos in .PNG that does not contain colour but uses various shades of black to depict an image, scan them using a DPI no lower than 600. After scanning, save the document in .PDF at a DPI of 300 to 600, and if the scanned file will be used for the Web, save it in .GIF so that the size will be reduced but would be more suitable for such an application.