A document may be 1 or more pages long and is usually fastened together. For example, a 3-page letter would count as 1 document.

How many actual pages of information are in each document? Pages printed on front and back count as 2 pages

Dark colors or a wide variety of colored paper require more custom adjustments, and therefore cost more to process.

Large documents like blueprints and industrial drawings must be converted with a scanner designed especially for them. They also require custom adjustments for maximum clarity.

Very small documents do not feed well into auto feeders, and so require a little more attention.

The index is the way you will search for the documents once they have been scanned. You should try to have enough fields to allow for easy retrieval, but not so many as to make the job very expensive.

Common index fields are, Name, Social Security Number, Address, Customer Number, Date and Document Type.

Bar codes are the easiest and therefore the least expensive information to capture. Machine-readable information is next. The most difficult is information that must be keypunched by operators. In all cases IDD uses a variety of verification schemes to be certain that the information is accurate.

OCR will add considerably to the cost, but will allow you to search for individual words or phrases within each document.

"Dirty" OCR is less expensive but will miss many words.
"Verified" OCR is very accurate but very costly. It assures that almost every word in every document can be searched.

High-speed scanners move paper very quickly. Fragile or damaged papers require slower scanners or scanners running at less than maximum speed. IDD can handle paper in any condition.

Prepping prepares the paper to be scanned. Every staple is removed and pages are all straightened. It is a time and labor-intensive process.

Are the pages printed on one or both sides?

IDD can convert documents for your own software or we can provide you with the software you need. We can do conversion to Adobe Acrobat (PDF). We also feature IMR's Alchemy software. This software is fast, accurate, and scalable from single users to enterprise-wide installations. As with any of our services, if you don't see what you want, we can customize it for you.