At OfficeDrop, we happily do all of your document scanning so you don’t have to. That being said, we realize that some people are perfectly content doing their own document scanning at home or in the office.

If you would rather do document scanning yourself and then upload or store on a DVD, we think that’s great. In fact, to help you with your scanning, we would like to offer some document scanning tips you might find helpful. We’ve scanned a lot of documents over the years, and we’ve learned a few tricks we’d like to share with those of you scanning yourselves.

Document Scanning Tips

Scan in Oder

If you know there’s a specific organization you would like for your documents once they are scanned, you should scan your documents according to that organization. Organizing and grouping paper documents previous to scanning can save you a lot of digital organization later, and will also ensure that you don’t forget any important documents during the document scanning process.

Scan Similar Sizes

If you’re scanning different sized documents, be sure to scan documents of similar size together. If your scanner can be fed stacks of paper simultaneously, smaller documents like receipts may shift between larger documents being loaded, leaving you with sideways or disoriented scans. To prevent this, scan only documents of similar size and, if possible, adjust the guides on your scanner to the size of the documents you are scanning.

Use Flatbed Scanners for Antique or Fragile Documents

Whenever you scan documents that tear especially easily, you should use a flatbed scanner rather than a scanner with a sheet feed. Whenever a scanner automatically feeds documents from a tray or stack, there’s possibility for a jam. You can avoid jams, but in the unfortunate case of one, you want to be sure flimsy or especially thin documents don’t get torn to pieces in the scanner. To avoid this, scan things like tracing paper and ancient documents on their own in a scanner that scans single documents laying flat.

Remove Stickers and Tape

It seems obvious, but it’s easy to forget a label or piece of tape you may have left on a document before scanning. Stickers and tape can ruin your document scanning with jams and can also damage your scanner. They can also make documents stick together which causes both jams and missed scans. Remember before document scanning to remove anything that might cause a jam and make sure pages are not stuck together.

Hopefully these tips will be helpful to your document scanning experiences. If you get sick of scanning yourself, you can always mail it to OfficeDrop where we do all the work for you. Otherwise we are happy to upload your documents once you’ve scanned them. Happy scanning!