If you’re seriously considering transitioning from a paper-based organization to a paperless one, then you need to ensure that your scanned PDF files are searchable and editable.
You don’t want to go through all that hassle only to find that it’s impossible to update your files or find them in the first place. This is important because when most organizations are migrating their documents to the digital form, they tend to forget about this until it’s too late.
By then, locating files becomes time consuming; and even when they do, editing them is impossible. That said, the benefits of ensuring that you can search your files and edit them are as follows:
Improved Productivity and Efficiency
The average employee spends thousands of hours looking for lost files every single year.
If you’re moving your files to the digital format, then it makes sense that you would want to be able to easily access your files, for certain keywords and make the necessary corrections. When these things are in place, it drastically improves your chances of being more productive and efficient at your tasks.
Easy to Find
It’s easier to locate whatever files you need when they are properly categorized and searchable. Often times, all you have to do is type in your keywords, click search and it will return the specific document.
But, when these measures aren’t in place, it is possible to spend the whole day looking for one file. This is why you should also name all files appropriately. Random numbers aren’t good enough.
When you have to deal with thousands of documents, you need to find the specific file immediately. So, do yourself a favor and name all those files properly. It’ll make it easier to locate them.
Can Be Easily Converted and Edited
Consistently modifying and updating a document is a pretty common practice in the workplace. This is important because terms change, situations change, contracts change… in fact, circumstances surrounding a deal or project can change.
The important thing is to be able to effect that change in the necessary PDF file. Making sure that your files can be edited when you’re making your transition is important to these processes.
Helps Versioning Audits
This is effective for tracking users and identifying changes made to all pdf documents. This is particularly important for sensitive documents.
When it’s easy to find a file, then you can easily check to see who has used the file, updated it, edited it and moved it. You can often track the file’s usage history –something that’s important for knowing who to hold responsible for specific changes.
Saves Time
For many employees, the time spent looking for files can be spent actually working on something more important. Making your files searchable will help them save more time as they will be able to quickly and speedily locate any file that they need without any stress
Makes Retyping Files Unnecessary
The common thing with paper is that you have to recreate the file completely from scratch after the necessary corrections are made.
This often results in multiple drafts, which in turn means multiple paper wastages. An editable PDF file on the other hand, doesn’t need to be retyped or recreated from scratch. All you have to do is carry your edits, save the file and it’ll be updated. It’s that simple really.
As you can see, there are many benefits to ensuring that your files are easily found and have the editing option. If you are serious about migrating to a paperless office, make sure that you use a software like Lucion’s Filecenter for all your paper to paperless migration. The software also has the ability to search for locate and edit all PDF files.
Oscar King is a small business owner and freelancer writer who strives on running an organized office and is always looking for and reviewing software, tools and services that can aid him in his endeavors. If you would like to learn more about Oscar, please check out his Google+ profile.
