SCANNER OR FAX??

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I'm trying to solve my "paper" problem by converting my documents to images. Will either use a feed scanner (for multi-page documents) or am considering using a fax to convert to image files. Fax is, of course, a little simpler since I could accept documents in that format rather than the extra step of converting the paper.

Will using the fax option result in smaller image files? I'm concerned with storage capacity as well as retaining the ability to attach the image file to e-mail for viewing/printing by others (windows platforms NT/95 - office. Would rather not get into proprietery software multi-licence issues!

Advice?

-- Mike McGuinness (mikemcguinness@prodigy.net), January 22, 1999

Answers

Whooee! This is a big issue, a lot more than we can cover here. The generic term for what you're looking for is "document imaging," and you'll likely find a lot of stuff on the web under those keywords. Depending on your budget, one option is to buy one license for Adobe Acrobat (the full version, which includes document imaging capabilities in the PC version), and then distribute the documents as PDF files (the PDF reader is free). As to storage capacity, if you're scanning as 1-bit (pure black/white) images, compressed TIFF will squeeze them down very small. Try a search on "document imaging" though, you should find lots of resources. Good Luck!

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), January 23, 1999.

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