Scanning, Generally

Aim

The aim of the scanning process is to end up with image files stored in client folders from which they can then easily be viewed via Durell’s “Document Viewer”.

File Formats

Most scanners are able to save images in a number of different formats. It is recommended that you use either the “TIF” or “PDF” file formats, because these give…

• a compact image format so as not to fill your hard disk too quickly
• a common image format, so files can be passed to third parties
• a multi-page image format, so multi-page letters can be stored as one file

Durell’s document viewer will also accept the “bmp”, “gif”, “jpg”, and “rle” formats, but you are recommended to use “tif”, if possible. Avoid “bmp” if possible, as this creates very large files.

Storage Locations

The Durell system will, in the location specified in its Set-up Filepaths (e.g. on Drive F: ), automatically create 26 folders for each letter of the alphabet, then make a sub-folder for each of your clients under the respective letter, each named with the client’s search name and unique ref number, for example…

• Folder “A”, with sub-folders for “Aaron F, 26754”, “Adams J, 45654”, etc
• Folder “B”, with sub-folders for “Bloggs T, 3498”, “Bender R, 12267”, etc

File Naming

Provided you use multi-page viewing software like “Irfanview” (see “Scanning, Set-up Irfanview”), which you can download from www.irfanview.com, and also provided that you save your images in individual client folders, then you won’t need to worry about naming your files (e.g. a file might be automatically named something like “19112003RUN001.TIF”, which will be fine). This is because within Irfanview you can use the “Next” or “Previous” buttons to look through all the images within any one folder, without having to know any of their names. Hence you’ll only ever need to link the first image for each client to Durell’s “Document Viewer”, because you will then use Irfanview’s “Next” or “Previous” buttons to move onto any others that get added later.

Of course you can choose to rename every image file (e.g. to something like “Aaron F 005643 Pension, Axa, 3213642643.tiff”), which is good practice but very time consuming. Equally you can link every individual image file to Durell’s “Document Viewer”, but again this may prove too time consuming.

Individual User

An individual user is likely to have a small scanning device located near his or her computer, like that described in “Scanning, Batch Scanning (Using IrfanView & HP ScanJet 7450c)”. In this case the user will complete the whole process of scanning the document and then saving it with the appropriate format and in the correct location.

Multi-user Office

In a larger office there is likely to be a centralised high-speed scanner, where one person has the job of scanning documents received each day into “Inboxes” for each of the members of staff, like that described in ”Scanning, Batch Scanning (Using IrfanView & Canon iR 5020i)”. Subsequently the individual members of staff will check the images in their own inboxes and either delete them, or move them to the appropriate client folders.

Retrieving Scanned Images

Provided images are stored in individual client folders, there is no need to link them immediately after they’ve been saved. When the Durell “Document Viewer” is activated for any given client if no image is available then one can be selected via the “Find Scan” button at that time, because it will be obvious where to look (i.e. any image file in that client’s folder will do), as shown below…

Prioritising The Image File

Refer to the “Prioritise Button” section within “Document Viewer” to see how to set your first scanned image for each client at the top of their Document Viewer’s list.