Document Management – Advances in Technology

In the 80s and 90s capturing, managing, and sharing documents in the business world meant copying machines, fax machines, and row upon row of file cabinets. Documents were often sent to settle offices and customers via fax or courier service. In today’s high-tech world, documents can be captured via a scanner, saved to a hard drive, and shared all crossed the company via e-mail or online digital documents. Document management software is a term that would have been unheard of just a few short decades ago. Today however, many businesses use software to capture, store, and share important paperwork and other documents.

While document management once just meant copying and filing documents for storage, today businesses can do more with a document than just copy it and file it. Entire groups can collaborate to create a document without ever being in the same room together. A lengthy document can be shared with satellite offices and customers across the globe in a matter of seconds. All of this can be accomplished without ever leaving your desk. This provides a wealth of improvements to business processes. Rather than rummaging through file cabinets, sales staff and other employees can simply click an icon on their computer to locate a particular document.

Part of the revolution behind the improved management of documents in the business world is the advancement in document imaging. The ability to scan a hard copy into a computer and create a digital copy allows or faster sharing of information and less storage space for record-keeping. Additionally, old records and documents are easy to access via a computer. A large amount of document images can be stored in a relatively small space. Likewise, multiple copies can be made so there is no need to be concerned over the degradation of paper documents over time.

Document imaging software has come a long way since the first scanners were introduced to the mass market in the 1990s. Whereas images were once grainy and blurry, thus making them difficult to read and print legible copies, today’s document images boast high-resolution that enables a printed copy to be just as good a quality as the original. Likewise, high-resolution document images are considered in some legal circles to be just as good as originals. Years ago, faxes and photocopies were considered unacceptable as official documents due to their poor quality and the ease with which they could forged.