Recommendations for storing documents electronically?

[isochar]

I have a lot of documents that I want to back up to the hard drive, so I can toss them out. I need to be able to print them out so that they look as close as possible to the original.

Documents include:
Letters
Memos
Receipts
Invoices

[xortam]

I'd recommend PostScript or PDF file formats for cross platform support.

[isochar]

PDF files have the awful habit of becoming extremely large. (Acrobat was my first consideration, but this seems like a huge drawback)

Care to extend on postscript a bit more? And recommend software for building them?

Cross platform support isn't necessary...

[KeiFront]

Postscript (PS) is a page description language developed by Adobe.

It's a programming language optimized for printing graphics and text, it's device independant and cross platform.

It is used in the graphics sector together with PDF. PDf is the successor of PS. Most texteditors can print PS or PDF postscript or you could use programs like Quark, Indesign to make postscript files.

[Wombat]

PostScript files will likely be as big as the PDFs, since all PDF is likely to do is make a PostScript file and put a PDF wrapper on it.

It's easy to get PS files though. In Windows, add a new printer, like the HP Laserjet 4, which takes PS files as its input. Then do a "print to file" for that printer. You will get a .prn file, but it should be a PS. Just rename it to .ps, and see if GhostView (a PS reader for Windows) can read it.

[Gurm]

Honestly, there's nothing you can do about the size. Let's be honest here. If you want compressible, scan it to a graphics file that is nicely compressible.

If you want to be able to work with it, you're pretty much stuck with PDF. PS is evil (mainly in that despite Adobe's protestations, you just can't work with it effectively).

- Gurm

[isochar]

Does anyone have any experience with DocuTrack?

http://www.docu-track.com/docutrack.htm

[rubank]

Iso, that doesn´t seem to be a storage solution just a managing system. They´re own docs are in PDF format.

Acrobat (PDF) is your best bet. The files will not grow in size if you set your properties right. There is no need, usually, to optimzie for printing at 600 dpi . Optimized for screen your PDF files will be much smaller than the originals.

Of course, you could just ZIP your originals, but you seem to be looking for another solution.

rubank

PS: I wrote a more lengthy answer, but as usual when I take my time writing something it was discarded and I had to log in again, with everything gone. Damned board software or whatever!

[isochar]

Yeh, I know. I thought it was on-topic since archiving hundreds of documents will require some way to manage them in an organized fashion.

[SteveC]

My work produces a kind of document management solution (knowledge management or something) - http://www.rebusis.com/e-business/WV...rm/default.htm but I think it's like loadsa money...

PDFs are what we recommend - use the full Acrobat (with Dongle) and you can whack a load of pages on a sheet feed scanner, and it'll OCR them, store the pics, make the PDFs from that and they're not big files in the end.

[isochar]

What do you mean by Acrobat with the dongle? Is it any different than the full education version? As for a scanner, I have a flatbed... so I won't be able to whip right through them.

I could always just purchase a sheet fed one and then ebay it. Any suggestions?

[RichL]

Another vote for PDFs here.
I had to stick our (read 'my') diagrams of our network onto our intranet server recently, and Visio 5 docs require a seperate plugin to view under IE.
Converting to JPEG or GIF just didnt give the image quality to read (2 point fonts in some places) and was just as huge in file size.
PDFs were far smaller (20k as opposed to 350k+) and were perfectly readable.

SteveC, you work for Rebus? I nearly took a job with them a few years back for their internal computer support guys!

[SteveC]

isochar - I dunno. The acrobat we have here that we use for scanning/OCR etc has to have a dongle on the parallel port or it don't work. The dongle also has a 20k page creation limit.

RichL - yep! i work (part time - outside of uni) for Rebus and have done for the last 6 or 7 years (since I did work experience back when I was 15!)
Small world eh?

[isochar]

I seem to be having some difficulty getting an exact print-out of the original document. (Does this with anyway I import it, pdf or an image file) I have it scaled to the paper size and no margins. The grey background also bothers me... (Goes through printer ink quick)

Here's the scan:


Here's the printout:


What am I doing wrong?

[rubank]

If you scan something off a white paper, the background will always be some shade of gray - if you scan as colour or greyscale image. It could be fixed in an image editing SW like Photoshop, or in the scanner SW (if it´s any good).

If you however scan as b/w the scanned paper will be white. You will also save considerable space. If you have any pictures in your docs this is no option, of course.

rubank