If so, it’s time for an upgrade. Maintaining paper documents can be an excellent way to keep records straight, but it also opens the door to damage, loss, theft or other issues. Tap or click here for mistakes that put your identity at risk. But how do you secure important documents and records? Digitizing them will let you do just that — while offering you quick, secure access to digital copies of your files. Let’s look at how you can digitize your documents, presented by our sponsor, IDrive. Get 5TB of secure cloud backup for 50% off at IDrive.com.
Benefits of digitizing important documents
As mentioned, digitizing documents ensures that you’ll always have a copy on hand if the original records are damaged, lost or stolen. But there are plenty of other reasons to digitize your documents, too. For example, there are situations when you need to show proof of insurance or offer up evidence of your identity. Having digital copies of your records gives you easy access to the paperwork or documents you need from virtually anywhere because they’re accessible from your phone or computer. Making a digital copy of your documents also helps to keep them secure. You can control who gets access to those files with passwords and encryption. Anyone can rummage through your paperwork — but not just anyone can access a secure digital file. Digital documents also make it simple to find what you need quickly or annotate when necessary. You can annotate and locate the paperwork you need by searching or clicking on the correct folder.
How to digitize your documents
Use a scanner
One of the easiest ways to digitize documents is by using a scanner. Our sponsor, Epson’s EcoTank line, offers scanners, printers, and copiers rolled into one device. These compact machines have wireless and ethernet connectivity, color touchscreens, voice-activated controls and tons of other features depending on the model. If you have many multi-page documents you need to scan, you may want to opt for the EcoTank ET-4760, which offers multi-page document scanning and an automatic document feeder. There are EcoTank options with flatbed scanners that fit lower-volume scanning needs, too. Tap or click here to find the EcoTank in stock.
Use an app
No scanner? There are apps you can use to scan documents instead. They aren’t all as user-friendly as feeding documents into a physical scanner, but they work well nonetheless. Take, for example, Adobe Scan. This app makes it simple to scan anything directly from your phone. You can use it to convert documents, forms, business cards, and whiteboards into high-quality Adobe PDFs. It also offers different capture modes, so your scans are as clear as possible every time. What’s unique about Adobe Scan is it uses Adobe Sensei to identify and sharpen handwritten or printed text on the documents you scan. It also removes annoying elements like glares and shadows, so your scanned documents are easy to read. It’s super easy to use. You just open the app, wait for the scan to capture, and then tap on the thumbnail to view or edit your scan. You can download Adobe Scan for iOS by tapping or clicking here. Need Adobe Scan for Android? Tap or click here to download it. Or, click the appropriate link inside the yellow box below. There’s also Genius Scan, an app that lets you easily batch-scan documents or files with multiple pages. To use Genius Scan, all you have to do is place any document in front of your device’s camera. The app automatically recognizes paper against the background and scans it. One of the main perks is it will also crop the scanned document if necessary and clean up the result. Another is it lets you scan dozens of pages in a matter of seconds. Want to download Genius Scan for iOS? Tap or click here. Need Genius Scan for Android? Tap or click here to download it. You can also check out Microsoft Office Lens. It’s a scanner app for your mobile device that scans, trims, enhances and makes your scanned docs readable. What’s unique about Office Lens is you can also use it to convert images to PDF, Word and PowerPoint files. You can even save images to OneNote or OneDrive. Want to try out Microsoft Office Lens? Tap or click here to download the app for iOS. Tap or click here to download the app for Android.
Storing your digital documents
Once you’ve scanned all of your documents, you’ll need to store the copies in a safe place. You can opt to use your local hard drive or a USB flash drive to store your files, or you can go with a more secure and high-tech option. Our sponsor, IDrive, offers online cloud backup and storage perfect for saving and accessing important documents. The nice thing about using a service like IDrive is your scanned documents will be accessible from anywhere. You can log in and access them when you need to. You can back up all your documents to one account from any device. Ditch the measly free storage you get from Big Tech companies. You can trust IDrive to keep all your most important documents safe and secure. Tap or click here for a year of cloud backup at 50% off — just $39.75 for your first year. Want to know more about IDrive? Here are five reasons to use the IDrive cloud service for your storage needs.
