Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have several legal documents I want to file away digitally. I've been teaching elementary schoolers for the past 10 years so I'm a little behind in current technology. So.....
What is the best way to digitally file wills, certificates, titles, deeds, etc?
Scan? PDF?
If anyone has a link of software that will do this easily for me I would appreciate it. I hate to think I will have 200 one page scans of documents (that is about where I am right now)
Get a scanner with a document feeder and save the documents as PDF files. You'll want to make backup copies both locally and on the Internet for safe keeping.
Make sure to buy one with a decent document feeder. I have had crappy ones that jam every 3rd or 4th page and it is a pain to get them out.
Or, if you only need this for a one time use you may want to see if Pop Copy (Kinkos) has a scanning service available. It seems like they would but I haven't used them for years.
There are some scanners that will scan both side simultaneously, so if you have any two-sided documents that's helpful. If you shop at Costco, they have one or two models of these, and since they have a good return policy, if it doesn't feed that well you could return it.
I have set up at least a dozen HP Scanjet 6010 machines for use scanning multi-page documents to be stored as .pdf files. These have worked quite successfully. I'm sure there are other products out there, but this is the one I've seen in action.
Before you spend a few hundred on a new scanner, I'd do as bs13690 suggested and see if a local FedEx/Kinko's or similar "copy place" can convert them to pdf for you.
My $150 Canon Multifunction has auto document feeding and can scan both sides. It's awesome fast and cheap!
Store you scanned data onto an NAS that has Raid 5. If you use hard drives or external drive they can go bad then you lose your data, - that's what happened to me and I can't afford $800+ data recovery unless I get a job...
You really have two different issues here. One: How to get the documents into digital form. Two: How to store them. What I tell people about storage is to consider the importance of the documents and then duplicate and verify the data. Depending on the importance, duplicate it in different formats and store it in different locations. Hard disks, flash drives, optical media, Internet storage are all options. Copies stored away from the computer, in a fireproof box, at another house, in a bank vault are all options, depending on your analysis of the importance of the data.
While a lot of high end printers have scan to pdf a lot of home printers have a scanner that make jpeg copies.
You can take any scanned image and convert it to a PDF using a free utility called cute PDF. It does not add watermarks to your document as some of the other "free" PDF software has. You just use cute PDF as a printer instead of your printer.
I do it all the time and can still work with the files generated this way in my Adobe pro with no issues.
I think the main thing is every so often making sure they are transferred to media that is up to date = like old files on floppies are pretty worthless..........
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
