(Approx. 1,439 words)
Going 100% Digital with
Genealogy – or Any – Records
By Tom J. Thiel, President,
Lake-Sumter Computer Society, Florida
tthiel5(at)comcast.net
Obtained from APCUG with the
author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
In April 2007, I offered a
presentation with the same title as above our the Lake-Sumter Computer
Society’s Genealogy Special Interest Group. For a handout see: http://www.lscs.us/presentations/070412%20Thiel%20Going%20100%25%20Digital%20Handout.pdf
In my presentation -- which
was based on an excellent article with a similar title by Dick Eastman in his
outstanding Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Plus Edition -- I extensively
described the Xerox DocuMate 152 scanner that costs about $500 with bundled
software. This, of course, was the one
Mr. Eastman had obtained and on which he based his fine article.
Well, for me at least and
for many the roughly $500 for the DocuMate 152 was a little bit on the pricey
side and also it is more of a work group scanner with office document scanning
as its primary design criteria.
One of the alternative
scanners I found in my research for the presentation and also mentioned in my
presentation was the Xerox DocuMate 510, flatbed scanner with an Automatic
Document Feeder (ADF) rated at 10 pages per minute.
About a month ago I decided
to obtain the DocuMate 510!
PC World has a very nice
review of the Xerox 510 at the following web site; http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,114941-page,1/article.html
-- two paragraphs were extracted in the text below.
“If you need to turn a stack
of paper documents into editable electronic text, using a scanner with optical
character recognition software and an automatic document feeder
attachment--like Xerox's new $350 DocuMate 510--is a speedy alternative to
typing.”
“While the DocuMate 510 is a
flatbed model--and therefore takes up more desk space than slimmer sheet-fed
scanners--its removable lid allows you to scan pages from books or other bound
volumes, including oversize originals. For any business or workgroup that needs
an affordable document scanner, the DocuMate 510 is a solid choice.” End Quote
I was able to find the 510
on the internet from a low of $298 to a high of $359. I paid $312 from Buy.com; however, I found that the local Office
Depot (Mount Dora, FL) has the DocuMate 510 for $299, complete with bundled
software.
And of special note, through
June 30, 2007, Xerox is offering a $50 mail in rebate.
So far I am totally pleased
with my DocuMate 510!
Scanner assembly went
effortlessly with the aid of a very well illustrated assembly schematic
manual. Installation requires that the
software be installed before connecting the 510 to your computer via the USB
port.
The 510 came with ScanSoft
PaperPort 9.0 which controls the scanner, TextBridge Pro 9.0 for Optical
Character Recognition, and ArcSoft Photo Impressions editing software all on
one CD-ROM. It also came with a 58-page
installation and scanning manual done quite nicely in slick paper, and
a12-month warranty.
After the software was
installed, the scanner components were connected to power and then I connected
it to the computer with the USB cable.
When I attempted to scan a document, however, I received an error
message. By entering the error code
into Google I was quickly able to determine that I had failed to adequately
unlock the shipping lock slider switch.
After sliding the switch,
the scanner worked perfectly. The sheet
feeder works very well and even handles quite thin papers although hearing
those go through the feeder may give one cause to worry a bit.
The ADF handles variable
length paper from about 6 inches to up to 14-inch legal length papers -- all in
the same stack in the ADF. And the fact
that the scanner’s cover may be easily removed to copy from books is also a
plus for genealogists and for general home applications.
Mr. Eastman, and others,
speaks at length on what these scanners and their software, collectively known
as a Document Management System, will mean -- reducing the number of filing
cabinets, safer storage and more rapid and complete retrieval.
All of these are, of course,
quite true, but you should be aware that to convert all of your existing file
cabinet’s contents to digital information is not something you will be able to
achieve quickly! Scanning all of your
existing documents, whether your genealogy documentation or your credit card,
banking or utility records, will take an appreciable amount of time and effort
regardless of the scanner you employ.
At present I am scanning my
bank statements, utility bills, medical Medicare and supplemental insurance
statements, medical reports and lab analyses, credit cards and the like.
I have not yet begun to scan
my Genealogy documents, but intend to -- this will be a daunting task; not the
scanning but the organizing and assembling of the documents that I have to get
them ready for scanning.
When you convert records to
a document management system as I am doing with the 510, you need to decide
what conversion scenario you will follow: scan all the documents that exist in
your files or scan from the day you begin scanning forward.
I have decided to convert
most of my documents starting from today forward (except of course for
genealogy records). This is simply
because it is easier to do this than to “empty the file cabinet first.”
Unlike the DocuMate 152,
which is a duplex scanner meaning that both the front and rear of a page are
scanned simultaneously with the same pass of the paper through the scanner, the
510 is a simplex meaning that only one side is scanned at a time.
However, the PaperPort
Deluxe 9 scanning software packaged with the scanner handles this situation
very well. Simply load the stack of
papers and scan the front side of all pages.
PaperPort will then ask “scan the other side?” and if you wish to you
simply turn the stack over and scan the reverse side. The software handles the pagination automatically.
The 510 is very simple to
use; one of the more difficult aspects of using it is to remember to load the
paper with the face up!
The PaperPort 9.0 software,
originally offered by ScanSoft and now by Nuance, works very effectively. One item I would like improved is the
default file name, which is “Day of week, Month, Day and Year.pdf.” Other options are available but it appears
that all use the current date in one form or another.
So far I have not
extensively used the OCR capability as that is a slower scanning process.
Another very useful feature
of the PaperPort software is that it is a printer and may be used to print any
document directly to a pdf, including documents from the web.
Managing the scanned
documents effectively can also be challenging.
I created a file folder structure similar to my physical filing cabinet
and that seems to work very well so far.
I scan a document or set of
documents and then merely drag these and drop them in the appropriate
folder. I then rename the file to
usually “YYMMDD Plus a Few Descriptive Words” in front of the default file
name.pdf. A medical record, for
example, would contain the year, month and day of the medical service, the
physician’s name and procedure, followed by the default scan date. I find that
using YYMMDD format for my records allows me to sort or otherwise keep a
logical file and folder order sequence by date; to use the standard MMDDYY
format will not sort logically.
If you are going to scan
older records then you should spend some time in document preparation before
beginning scanning. Ensuring that
documents are in proper order, staples removed, corners straightened, etc.,
will speed up the scanning process.
And you must verify your
copy before discarding the paper document!
I am discarding most of the documents I have scanned so far.
All of my scanning to date
has been black and white and at 300 dots per inch resolution, which in most
cases has been adequate. This will
result in a pdf file of perhaps 35KB per page.
If you decide to convert
your paper files to 100% digital records, then you simply must practice
excellent and very frequent backup procedures.
Otherwise you will lose everything! I make a copy on an external drive
after every session.
The choice is yours of
course, but my advise is: “Go 100% Digital, and do it now!” ###
This
article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by
APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (see
e-mail address above).