Document Scanning Key Terms

Keep your business up to digital speed by learning the jargon of document scanning

As more business is conducted digitally, document scanning is becoming an integral aspect of business communications. Unlike faxing, scanning a document not only allows a company to send a copy of it instantaneously to its destination, but also provides a digital backup and the ability to comment on and edit the document. Digital technology is continually developing, and document scanning is constantly improving to allow for better recognition and clarity for scanned documents.

Optical Character Recognition

Optical Character Recognition is software that works with document scanners to gather the text information from the document image. Current programs work best with clear copies, using simple fonts.
Pacific Lutheran University gives an explanation of OCR, including the best material to use and the limitations of the technology.

Document management system

Document management systems allow businesses to make the most of the documents they are scanning. These software applications allow for storing, organizing, retrieving, and sharing scanned documents in a quick and efficient manner.
InformationWeek discusses document management systems and how to make them work the best for your business.

Automatic document feeder

An automatic document feeder is an option that's quite useful for businesses that perform a lot of document scanning. A document scanner with this feature takes multiple documents and feeds them into the scanner one at a time. A person using a scanner without this feature would have to manually remove and reposition each consecutive document to be scanned.
Compact Data Management discusses document scanner features, including the automatic document feeder.

TWAIN

TWAIN is a software protocol standard for communication between software applications and imaging hardware, such as digital cameras and scanners. Originally taken from the quote "and never the twain shall meet" in Rudyard Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West," the name is often mistaken for an acronym and is also known as Technology Without An Interesting Name in some circles.
TWAIN Working Group discusses this history of TWAIN as well as the current standards and upgrades.

Charge-coupled device

The charge-coupled device is at the core of many digital imaging devices, including digital cameras and scanners. These are an arrangement of light-sensitive semi-conductors that create the image when light strikes them.
Computerworld discusses the workings of charge-coupled devices in depth.

Color dropout

Color dropout works with scanning software to scanned images of color documents and black & white versions. This increases the efficiency of OCR software. Another benefit to black and white documents is that it results in smaller file sizes, which is advantageous for storage and transfer.
Hewlett-Packard gives an overview of color dropout as well as examples of original and black and white versions of color scans.

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