2. Get a search application

The second part, once you have searchable files, is to get a program that will help you retrieve them. You can link it into a high-end document management solution, of course. But before you take that step, you can do just fine with inexpensive software, such as Google Desktop.

Google’s search engine (as we’ve all experienced) is amazingly fast, and will allow you to find and bring up a list of relevant searchable PDF documents for any search term. It’s a familiar interface that every user can jump right on, and experienced Google users already know how to focus their searches. The best idea is to keep the searchable files on a server, under a specific file folder, and start adding files.

3. Rethink faxing

Let’s face it — faxing is almost a Stone Age technology in the age of digital transmission and scanning-to-e-mail. But faxes are still important parts of some businesses, thanks to tradition, comfort, inertia or whatever. For example, most pharmacies use fax to get prescriptions from doctor’s offices.

If you need to handle faxes, there are two good approaches. You can take the paper copies and scan them into PDF, as you would other paper documents, and send them by e-mail. Or you can get software (such as eFax) that assigns specific fax numbers to each user, intercepts incoming faxes, digitizes them, and e-mails them to the user. This approach can cut down on the problem of lost or misrouted faxes. Of course, it lets you send files on your PC directly to their fax machines. It also allows users who are not physically present in the office to receive (and send) faxes.

4. Combine analog and paper documents

In most companies, some information is in paper form only, but an increasing amount is in digital format. These may include Word files, Excel spreadsheets, e-mails, or a wide variety of other formats. These may reside on users’ desktops or on one of several servers, local or remote.

As a result, interactions with one client may include printed invoices and bills, paper waybills, signed contracts, a long email exchange, a few faxes with notes written on them and various digital proposals and reports.

So even after you have scanned in the papers, it may be difficult to find key documents that maybe had never been printed or were printed but lost. The task of searching through several desktop PCs and servers, for information in a number of file formats is daunting.

Fortunately, you can use the same software that converts scanned paper documents into searchable PDFs to convert a variety of digital files into the same format. Usually, this is accomplished using the Print command, and having it use a conversion driver rather than a driver for an actual printer. Most of us are used to doing this for making everyday PDF files.

Having all these documents at hand will make it easy to put together a report for management, for sales people, or for the client, a report that combines a variety of documents that trace the history of a set of transactions, whether the background on a specific order, a billing and payment history, or a progress report on a long-term project. Using today’s technology, it is easy to combine pages from a wide variety of sources into a single PDF file that can be delivered electronically or printed out as needed.

5. Gradually drive paper out of the process

There are several factors at work here. Today’s monitors are larger, making it easier to read a full page at one time. Younger workers especially have grown up expecting to complete most transactions online, even when the screen is no bigger than an iPhone or a Blackberry. Electronic signature technology and security keeps getting better. Finally, even the business world is changing, so that bid proposals, pricing quotes and confirmations are going more and more digital, so companies that want to win have to jump in fast — in many cases, there’s no time for printing, packing and FedExing. The need is for now.

Of course, these are basic steps. If and when you want a more elaborate system, you can work with high-level document management systems, production scanning, and more elaborate security and backup strategies. The best thing is that this approach, with searchable PDF, can be easily incorporated into any more elaborate system with no wasted effort.

Get information on eCopy Desktop here. There is a full function, trial version available if you want to experiment with it.