The digitization of companies is currently essential. And in this task, the digitization of documents is one of the first actions to be carried out. PDF has been the standard format for many years. For companies, and for any business, administration, or even for families, the digital process must be paramount.
Digitization allows us to consult any document from our electronic devices, be it the electricity bill or the last budget sent. With this, we managed to increase our productivity because we can access any data from anywhere and in a very simple and fast way. With digitization, we stop handling and storing paper documents to be more efficient, but it demands mastery of new skills. In the context of using PDF files, skills such as how to rotate PDF online, how to convert PDF, and how to edit PDF text are very relevant.
Scanning documents in PDF and other files
Receipts, delivery notes, purchase invoices, orders, tickets… Everything must be filed and saved.
The days of those papers being kept in filing cabinets or boxes are over. There is no point in keeping those documents that may be important on paper. Everything must be digitized so that they are well preserved and it is easy to find them when they may be needed.
When digitizing documents there are a few things to keep in mind:
See what type of document it is.
Give it a specific name
Structure the information
Choose the format
Make a security copy
Depending on the document that we have to digitize, we will have to do it in one way or another. The ticket for a work lunch is not the same as an invoice. If the documents that we handle, such as invoices or budgets, are already digital, they will only have to be filed correctly. Some documents will suffice to take a photo with your mobile, others will have to be scanned and others will have to use an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool to transform images into text.
But the digitization of documents does not only consist of saving the documents on the computer. You have to have them organized to be able to find and consult them easily. For this, certain criteria must be followed. The name of the files will help us to keep everything well organized.
Obviously, it is essential to make a backup copy of all the files, it is not worth it if they are in one place and our equipment fails and we lose everything. Files that can be accessed by multiple team members should be in the cloud.
What are PDF files?
PDF files, since 1993, are the standard for most procedures and documents. It belongs to the company Adobe (Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom among other software) and was created for two purposes:
– That the files could be opened from any operating system, without the need to have the application with which it was created installed.
– It doesn’t matter where you open it the document will look the same.
Images, procedures, texts, forms, and websites… encoded in PDF are displayed correctly on any device, be it a computer, tablet, or mobile. Windows or Mac.
If we send an invoice or estimate in Excel, for example, the recipient may not see it the same as we did because they have an earlier or later version of Excel or simply do not have Excel installed. If we send a PDF file you will see the document as it was created. Therefore, it is the standard in the exchange of documents. There is no point in archiving documents in Word, for example, when it is constantly being updated and there comes a time when old versions do not read correctly.
The problem with PDFs is that they are read-only. If you want to modify a PDF, you have to buy the Adobe application. If you are going to take advantage of it, it is the best option, but if you only use it from time to time for specific things, there are applications that allow you to modify or change PDFs very easily, without any outlay.
