Cities Digital is a full service bureau to accomodate your scanning needs. Our safe, secure, and efficient scanning bureau ensures that even the most sensitive documents can be trusted to us for handling. We are on of the only scanning service centers that will also scan your documents onsite in the comfort and security of our clients's own office.
Having our team scan your backfile gives your staff the ability to focus on what they do best instead. Converting paper documents to digital images is our forte. Cities Digital can scan paper documents to nearly any format in existence (pdf, tif, gif, and even proprietory formats). We also offer to do extra preparation of documents (i.e. staple removal, restaple and sorting) before and after scanning as an optional service. Although there are some clients who wish to handle their own scanning, most people find that having us scan the backfile is the most cost efficient and reliable option.
Our scanning services include all sized and types of paper, aperture cards, microfilm, microfiche, negetives, slides, and photographs. After documents are scanned, Cities Digital then applies approriate indexing information and imports the images into your database, or prepares a file structure.
At Cities Digital we have worked with clients to scan historical documents as well as classified information. Our experience working with a wide variety of projects should give you the piece of mind that our team of employees can help you get your arms around the paper nightmare.
For a complete list of scanning prices:
Scanning 101
Start Scanning Now! - Begin your own scanning initiative
Reasons to scan:
- Clean up office space
- Part of a disaster recovery plan
- Provide better document access for employees
- Give clients access to documents
- Decrease loss of records
- Decrease misfiling mistakes
- Increase efficiency
What do you need to begin scanning:
1. Image Capture Software - Such as Laserfiche or Ascent Capture
Image capture software has a wide range of capabilities that will help you keep your documents organized and easily accessible, so make sure to check into multiple options so tha tyou get the right software to meet your needs and budget.
2. Image Capture Hardware
There are many different speed and driver options for scanners, so make sure to check different brands and price ranges to get the right scanner for you.
Keys to a good document management system:
- Secure Access
- Search for all typewritten text
- Ability to easily retrieve documents
Scanning Tips
Most scanners and image capture software come with a variety of options for obtaining an excellent scanned image. A good scanned image should look like a good photo copy. The image on the screen should look just like the original paper. There should be no black borders, the image should be straight, legible and have no lines running through it. The background should not be shaded and the whole page should be visible.
Troubleshooting Scanned Images:
| Line through my image on every page | Clean the glass on the scanner. |
| The edge of my page is cut off | Check the page size you have selected. If it is on auto-detection, turn to the specific page size. If the edge of the page is dark, turn black border removal off |
| The image is skewed | Turn the de-skew option on and rescan the page |
| Some of the text is too light to read | Adjust the brightness down and rescan the page |
| There are a lot of blank pages showing up | Adjust the settings for blank page removal so that it is a bit less sensitive |
| Black borders | Make sure that border removal is selected. If that does not fix the problem, turn auto-detect page size off and select the precise page size that you are working with. Also try setting a specific crop from the edge that is having problems |
Outsourced Scanning
Benefits of Outsourcing Scanning
- Realize the benefits of your document management software faster.
- Allow your staff to continue doing what they do best.
Many times paper records have been handled over many years by many different types of people, they may contain stray documents and misfiled documents. If your files are orderly when input into the system, you will have the best result in your new document management system.
How do you want to store your scanned images?There are a number of ways you can store scanned images. You will have to analyze the needs of your office and your budget in order to determine what is the best system for you. Some things to think about are:
- How many people will be accessing the images?
- Approximately how many documents will you want to store?
- Will you need to have people who are offsite access the documents?
- Will you want to post documents on your website?
- Will you need an audit trail function?
- Will you need to input documents going forward?
You will need to decide how to organize your documents. Depending on the software that you will be using to organize and store your documents, you will need a strategy for naming and filing your scanned documents. Choose a file folder structure, uniform naming convention, and some key indexing fields that you can use to help to look up your documents.
What will you do with the papers when the scanning is done?You have a couple of choices. You can keep the paper records in storage or you can have them shredded.
Download Scanning Services Brochure
Aperture cards
Large format drawings
Letter, legal and C size
Microfiche
Microfilm
Negatives
Photos
Slides
Xpress Turnaround available
For a quote or further information, contact us at
651-714-2800 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it