TECH PERSONAL SECIAL...9 Ways to Go Paperless

9 Ways to Go Paperless

Storing hard copies of documents is risky — they are susceptible to aging and external elements.

How you can digitise, enhance AND  make documents accessible from anywhere

APPS

CamCard Lite

This free app for iOS and Android digitises business cards by simply taking a photo. It reads the details on the card, which can be edited before being saved to the phonebook, Google contacts or other exchange account. All cards are saved to the cloud, making it easier to sync contacts with multiple devices. The lite version lets you scan 10 cards in the first week and two cards in the week after. A paid version (US$ 6.99) removes this limitation.

Warrantify

Warrantify takes care of all your warranty and receipts. Make a free account and then scan the hard copy of the document by taking a picture using your phone camera. Add relevant information about model details, price and warranty validity — the app will keep track of the warranty period and notify you nearer to the expiry date. All documents are also backed up online and can be accessed on their website (www.warrantify.com).

OfficeDrop

This one does not put any restriction on types of documents — just click and save notes, pictures, documents, receipts and so on using your iOS or Android device's camera. All scanned documents are saved as searchable PDFs and can be accessed on the device or on the Officedrop website (www. officedrop.com). You can also add labels, sort scans into folders and create multi-page PDF files. ONLINE Free Online OCR

OCR or optical character recognition technology can be used to extract text from an image file. For instance, if you take a photograph of a printed page, OCR software can convert it to an editable Word document with reasonable accuracy. At www.free-ocr.com, you can upload a JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP or PDF file and have it automatically converted to text. The idea is that it saves you the hassle of typing the entire document out. The accuracy of the converted text sometimes varies wildly — it depends on the quality of the photograph you upload & the kind of text on the page.

Kleeto Document Management

If you're worried about the safety of your physical documents plus you want to be able to access them anywhere, use a service like Kleeto (www.kleeto.in). For the basic subscription of 200 per year, Kleeto will securely store 15 physical documents for you (up to 5 pages per document) and provide 50MB of secure online storage. They will pick up the documents from you, scan them to make them available to you online and store them away safely. If you need the originals for whatever reason, they can be sent to you within 2 -3 days.

    Scan Tailor

Usually, when you scan a page, the resultant digital file may have a lot of imperfections. Text is more often a shade of gray rather than black, white paper can seem yellowish, there could be random specks on the page or unwanted shadows (such as when scanning a book). The Windows-only Scan Tailor (http://scantailor.sourceforge.net) is a free post-processing tool for scanned images that can autocorrect many of these problems. You can also correct a batch of images, adjust the alignment/

DEVICES

LG SmartScan LSM-100

It may look and work like any other optical mouse, but LG's LSM-100 has a built-in scanner that lets you scan A3 pages by just moving the mouse over it in a sweeping motion. It switches to scanner mode and back at the touch of a button. Files can be saved in PNG, JPEG, PDF or various other file formats. LG also bundles OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software — to convert text from images into editable text documents. Scanned files can also be shared in real-time over email. 3,500 from lg.com/in

iBall ClickScan A3

Thanks to the 5MP CMOS image sensor, this foldable scanner can scan documents and objects without making physical contact. It scans an A3 size document/object in 1 second and also includes OCR software to extract text from scanned images. The height and arm of the scanner can be adjusted as per the requirement and it even has 8 LEDs to help scan in low light. Twist the camera out and you can use it to record videos or project the image of an object (using an attached PC and projector). 9,990 from iball.co.in

Epson WorkForce DS30

This portable sheet-fed scanner from Epson weighs a mere 325 grams and is compact enough to carry in a briefcase. It can scan up to A4 size sheets and comes with software for business card scanning, OCR as well as various enhancements to improve the scan quality. Scanned files can be directly attached to an e-mail or sent to various cloud services. It is powered by a single USB port and uses an LED light source which consumes lesser power than other portable scanners. It scans a colour A4 page in just about 13 seconds.

- Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat ET120509