CIO OPINION
• How mobile is your workforce
• What kind of computer or cloud infrastructure you have or intend to invest in
• How tech-savvy is your workforce
• All these factors will help you determine how good a fit various software programs are for you and your business needs .
2 : The best scanning software will have OCR
If you were to nominate programs for the title of “ best scanning software ”, all the contenders would have at least one thing in common : OCR . OCR or optical character recognition is a feature that allows scanner software to translate scanned documents into files that are : Searchable , editable and accessible . The importance of this is almost impossible to overstate . For example , imagine that your business handles contracts . If you were to scan the draft of a contract using non-OCR software , you would end up with a picture of the contract . This would allow you to read the document and print an exact copy .
However , you would not be able to edit the document , you will be forced to retype the entire thing from scratch if something changes . In addition , you will not be able to use a screen reader or other tool to make the document accessible to individuals with disabilities or find words or phrases in the document using standard search tools .
These limitations cut down on what you can do with scanned documents . They also increase the amount of time and effort needed on your end to handle those documents every time they come up .
With an OCR-enabled software program , by contrast , the data in your scanned documents can be accessed , shared , and used in all of the same ways as files that you create digitally from scratch . No matter what your industry or digitising intentions , OCR is the way to go .
3 : Consider springing for software that auto-corrects
Very little is more frustrating than pulling up a document you need for work only to find that in addition to not using OCR , the previous user did a terrible job of scanning it . It might be cock-eyed . The coloring or shading might be poor , making it blurry and hard to read . They might have even spilled coffee on it before scanning . Whatever the case , the result is the same : you , your coworkers , and your clients have to work with a subpar document .
With an OCR-enabled software program , by contrast , the data in your scanned documents can be accessed , shared , and used in all of the same ways as files that you create digitally from scratch .
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