Imagine, just for a moment, that you had a free office. As in empty rather than rent free. Like if you somehow managed to eliminate several dozen boxes of paper archives (you know, by getting them digitised, or having them stored off-site) and could actually see further than a  metre  into the archive room. Just think what you could do with all that space! We do a lot of driving to go and see our clients in person, and these are a few of the ideas we came up with while traversing the highways and byways of the South West.

1) Trial trampolining desks for your more energetic staff

Everyone scoffed at standing desks when they first went on sale, didn’t they? And now look at all the trendy kids with their, “Oh ya, it’s just so fantastic for the posture, don’t you know?” Some of them even have treadmills attached to make them into walking desks. Well, you’ll show them. They won’t be laughing when you’ve cornered the trampolining desk market and have the world’s fittest staff.

2) Start a mini petting zoo

There are studies out there from eminently sensible, scientifically qualified people who have proven that spending time with animals can lower stress levels. You’d need the right kind of animals, obviously. No one’s going to feel especially relaxed after half an hour enclosed in a former storage room with a silverback gorilla or a pack of wolves. But some nice ducklings and puppies and things would be fun.

3) Practice your wallpapering skills

Putting up wallpaper is one of those annoying and fiddly jobs you don’t have to do often. Which means it always starts badly and by the time you start getting good at it, you’re done. And then when it’s time to do it again in a few years, you’ve forgotten everything you learned. The answer? Daily practise. Get in there and make those bare walls beautiful!

4) Build the world’s largest collection of promotional stress balls

Everyone needs a hobby. It’s proven to be very relaxing (like being around animals – it might have been the same study). And there’s something just so satisfying about a stress ball. Like chewing gum for your hand. If you go to even a moderate number of conferences and exhibitions you’re bound to come across dozens of them, and they’re free too, so this won’t be an expensive hobby. That’s the definition of win-win, right there.

5) Make a Bat cave

You know you want one. Yes, you do. You do really. Ok, we want one, but we kind of have to dedicate our space to our clients’ documents, so it would be really great if you could make one and then invite us round. You can be Batman, we don’t mind being Robin. Or even Arthur. We’ve always thought he was the unsung hero of that franchise.

6) Have a team-building sleep over

Everyone can bring their sleeping bags and their PJs, and stay up late eating chocolate biscuits and telling ghost stories. It will be just like Scouts, when they go off to get all their outdoor survival type badges. Only with less trees and mud and, well, the actual outdoors. But still super fun.

7) Install a panic room

Not one of those impenetrable bunkers sealed with reinforced steel bars designed to keep assassins at bay. Just a room where people can go when they’re panicking. You know, because they’ve only just remembered that report is due tomorrow and they haven’t started it. Or they heard on the grapevine that Laura in accounts is after volunteers for the company karaoke night.

So there you have it – seven perfectly good ways to use an empty office. Can you think of any more? Tweet us your ideas at @scanfilmorstore or post a note on our Facebook page, and we’ll reshare the best ones.

And if you’re feeling blue because you don’t have any spare office and you’d like one, get in touch today to find out more about how we can help give you the space to make even your craziest dreams a reality.

PC vs Mac. Ketchup vs HP Sauce. Bristol City vs Bristol Rovers. As consumers, we’re spoilt for choice, which can make decisions tricky. When it comes to document management, the big choice is between PDFs and TIFFs.

So what’s the difference? Well, we’re very glad you asked, seeing as how that’s what this blog post is all about.

Let’s look at a few of the key characteristics of each one…

The PDF aka Portable Document Format

According to its inventor, Adobe, a PDF is “a file format used to present and exchange documents reliably, independent of software, hardware, or operating system.”

PDFs are by far the most accessible file format. Everyone has a free PDF reader on their computer, so there’s no need to buy any new software, or even faff about with a free download.

And if you should upgrade to the Pro version of the Adobe Acrobat software, you’ll be able to access all the other great functions that PDFs have. Things like links and buttons, form fields, audio, video, and even business logic.

Oh, and PDFs can also be signed electronically, so you really don’t ever have to print them and create unnecessary paperwork. Ideal if you’re aiming for a paperless office.

Fun fact: The PDF was developed as part of The Camelot Project, which was created by Adobe cofounder Dr John Warnock to launch a paper-to-digital revolution way back in 1991.

The TIFF aka Tagged-Image File Formats

The TIFF is “a flexible raster image format” – but don’t worry too much about deciphering that. The truth is that TIFFs are most often used by people like designers who need all of the detail that a raw file would contain, in order to manipulate the image. Put it this way – if you need a TIFF, you probably already know what it is.

Because of the information the files contain, TIFFs are bigger than PDFs, so they take up more digital storage room. The other downside of using TIFFs is the fact that you’ll need to source and possibly pay for software in order to read them. Back in the old days (yes, we do remember them!) every PC had a TIFF reader as standard, but as they say, there’s nothing as constant as change.

So what does all of this mean to you? Well, just that when you have your documents scanned, it’s worth having a little think about how you want to use the scanned files and which format will suit you best.

If you need any more guidance around your specific needs, just give us a call and we’ll help you make the right decision. And we promise not to use any more jargon than we have to!

If there’s one thing the document scanning industry does well, it’s technology. We might not go as far as to say we love the machines we use to scan our clients’ documents, but we certainly like them a lot. (Oh, who are we kidding – we love them.)

It’s understandable that if the only scanner you’ve seen is the one that comes as an integral part of your office photocopier, you probably don’t think they’re all that flash. But if you were to visit us at our offices in Bridgwater, Somerset – which, incidentally, you’re welcome to do any time – you’d see they’re exceptionally clever bits of kit, with all sorts of extra features that make them really rather useful indeed.

You see, we may be an old fashioned bunch who believe in things like personalised customer service (remember the old lady we picked up from the train station recently??), but when it comes to technology, we’re giving the Silicon Valley kids a run for their money. Here are three of our favourite scanners (and the reasons why we love them)…

The Book Eye Pro 4

This German-built machine is the one we use to scan books that need to stay intact. Featuring a multi-angled base plate and moving scanner head, it can deal with the most delicate of volumes without damaging the binding, plus flat items of up to A3 size. Each page is turned by hand – with cotton gloves, in the case of delicate items – so it’s not a quick process, but the results are worth it. We’ve used ours to scan everything from ancient manuscripts and 150-year-old old leather bound council records to collections of vintage football magazines.

The flashy bits:

• In-built software takes out the unsightly ‘buttock crease’ (you know what we mean, right?) and flattens out the image.
• The same software can enhance the image if necessary, and can cut a double page image into its single page components.
• Because there’s no need to feed the originals through a roller, it can scan thicker items too, such as art canvases.

Why you should love it: Using this bit of kit means you don’t need to have your books or ledgers taken to pieces in order to be scanned – even the spines will stay perfectly intact.

The OCE Large Format Scanner

For technical drawings, architectural plans and anything else above A3 size, this is the machine you need. It can take documents of up to 36 inches wide and 15mm thick, but here’s the thing – there’s no limit on length. So we can scan documents like hospital ITU charts and 25ft long aircraft drawings with ease.

The flashy bits:

• Single camera and mirror formation ensures super accurate colour capture.
• Preset modes can be used to scan non-standard documents such as blue prints, transparencies, dark originals etc.
• Special configuration takes documents up to 15ml thick so we can scan items like mounted artwork.

Why you should love it: If you regularly deal with large format documents, this is the machine that will enable you to create a digital archive – and save yourself a awful lot of storage space.

The Kodak i4600

This is our main volume scanner. It will knock out around 40,000 images a day, which we think you’ll agree is pretty darn quick. It can do colour, black and white, and greyscale scanning up to A3 size and is as accurate as it gets, outputting images as PDF, jpeg or TIFF files.

The flashy bits:

• Creates super high res pictures up to 1200 DPI (as a comparison, glossy magazines tend to use pics of around 300 DPI quality).
• A super accurate alarm system to prevent more than one page going through at a time.
• Built-in OCR (optical character recognition) software, which means you can search your scanned digital files for text in up to 50 language.

Why you should love it: This is the reason we can turn your bulky, possibly chaotic archive room into a state of the art, easily accessible digital archive, without taking several months to do it.

If you fancy having a gander at our beloved tech for yourself, and finding out how we can use it to help you create a digital archive of your paperwork, get in touch today.

Save

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We’re the first to admit that the document scanning and storage industry is hardly awash with high drama. It’s unlikely, in the course of any given day, that we’re likely to find ourselves facing anything more interesting* than several dozen boxes of customer survey forms, or a back office laden with technical drawings.

But just occasionally, a job comes in that we’d even risk turning into an anecdote at a dinner party without fear that we wouldn’t be invited back again. This is one such job…

“Do you do scanning in a different language?”

The enquiry came in via the website. A lady said she needed some documents scanned – and she needed them done fast. No problem, we thought, we can do fast. So we gave her a ring to find out more.

Our prospective client was pleased to hear from us, as she had a question of her own: “Do you do scanning in a different language?”

We scratched our heads for a moment. “Well, we could probably use OCR – that’s optical character recognition – and…”

No, no, she interrupted, that’s not what she meant. She just wondered if we’d scan foreign documents.

Well, as it happens we’ll quite happily scan the entire works of Shakespeare in Klingon if you should so wish, so it was agreed that we would go ahead with the job.

As always, we offered to collect the documents, but she declined: “I can bring them in, dear. Only, would you be able to collect me from the train station?”

How could we refuse?

Miss Marple and the mysterious suitcase

The next day saw us helping one very sprightly 85-year-old lady and one enormous – and very heavy – suitcase off the train at Bridgwater.

It wasn’t until we were back at the office that we finally got a glimpse of its treasures: ancient Tibetan manuscripts dating back to the 1500s.

Turns out, our client was heading to China to deliver a lecture on Tibetan religion, and had evidently (and rather sensibly) decided that hauling these precious tomes half way around the world in an airplane cargo hold wasn’t a sensible move.

Luckily, our Book Eye Pro 4 book scanner holds books carefully in a specially designed V-plate to keep the spines from being damaged, and then uses inbuilt software to flatten out the images and remove what we lovingly refer to as the ‘buttock crease’ (we tend not to actually call it this in front of our clients).

Anyway, our 85-year-old historian was thrilled to be presented with her manuscripts, now condensed into a USB stick that would barely make a dent on her travel allowance. She duly headed off and, presumably, brought the house down with her well-researched lecture.

So you see, we do have the odd Indiana Jones moment here at Scan Film or Store. Just without the bad guys. And the snakes. And the hat…

(*It should be pointed out that we do, in fact, find these things quite interesting. It’s just that we don’t think many other people would feel the same way. Which is as it should be really.)

Got something interesting for us to scan? Get in touch with us today – we can’t wait to find out what it is!

Save

When you rent your office by the square foot, a chance to save office space means a chance to save money. But how far would you go to shave a few inches off your floorplan to help keep costs down? If you need to save space in the office here’s 5 solutions (if you’re up for a challenge):

1. Ban Office Chairs
2. Build Bunk Cubicles
3. Relocate to Outer Space
4. Install Window Cabinets
5. Create a Digital Archive

Read more in detail below:

Ban Office Chairs

Yes, all of them. Standing desks are all the rage anyway. According to Tony Randall of Randall’s Office Furniture, they can even help you lose weight. Who needs to rest their weary bones? Sitting is for losers! Stand and save office space, that’s what we say. And if you can find employees who are practiced in the art of levitation, so much the better.

Build Bunk Cubicles

Most kids prefer bunk beds to regular beds, so it’s surely only fair to say that your employees will have more fun working in vertically stacking bunk cubicles than they currently do in their frankly rather unimaginative ‘side by side’ layout. And just think of how much floor space you’ll save! Horizontal working is so passé, don’t you think?

Relocate to Outer Space

Not only will you be celebrated the world over for your pioneering pluck, you’ll be able to store pretty much everything off the ground thanks to the lack of gravity. Do remember to invest heavily in ropes and chains though, to ensure your supplies (not to mention staff) don’t float away.

If outer space isn’t a possibility then Elon Musk could make Mars a new venture:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/30/elon-musk-spacex-mars-mission-volunteers

Install Window Cabinets

When apartment dwellers want a bit of space to grow flowers or herbs, they turn to their window ledges. So why shouldn’t space-starved office workers do the same? You may very well start a trend. Soon every office block will be speckled with filing cabinets stuck to their outer walls with ‘No More Nails’.

Create a Digital Archive

Ok, we’ll admit these aren’t the most practical of solutions, but there’s one more idea that is. How about scanning your paper documents to create digital records, or storing the originals offsite? Now there’s a thought! Funnily enough, this is something we can take care of for you.  Get in touch to find out how we can help you save office space without having to resort to drastic measures.

In this month’s blog post, one Scan Film or Store customer explains why working with us had unexpected benefits…

I have a confession to make – I’m a hoarder. I still have the sticker book I was given in junior school, countless printed photos from the days before iPhones and Instagram, and a collection of letters and diaries that span most of my lifetime.

As a journalist, I also have an awful lot of magazines. Well, I did. Shelves of them. Granted they were neatly categorised – some for research, some for fun, most because they contained a piece of work I’d done at some point in the last decade – but they were taking up increasing amounts of room. And gathering dust (confession number two: I’m not much of a housekeeper). Something had to be done.

One option was for my husband and I to move from our two bedroom flat into a three bedroom house. Except that decision, when we made it earlier this year, was precipitated by the discovery that we were expecting twins. Yes, a new house would give us more room, but it would instantly be filled with cots and nappies and various other small person paraphernalia. There wouldn’t be much left over for all those magazines.

My husband was adamant. The move would be a chance to reduce our (read: my) clutter. We would have a clear out as we packed, and another as we unpacked. I knew he’d be ruthless, and I feared for my magazines.

Luckily, I knew someone who could help. I spoke to Mark at Scan Film or Store about how easy it might be to get my articles scanned so I could keep a record of my portfolio without the bulk. “Oh, very easy,” he assured me. I think he might have said a few technical things after that, but I’d heard all I needed to hear. Easy is what you want when you’re preparing for a house move and two babies, as well as running your own business.

And it was easy, from start to finish. Mark even provided me with boxes, and collected them once they were full. The magazines were carefully disassembled, and the articles I’d marked were scanned using the kind of technical wizardry that is well beyond my understanding.

Next thing I knew, I was holding a single disc containing 635MB of high-res PDF files, all perfectly square and in focus, labelled up with the magazine name and issue. I was thrilled – as was my husband when he saw the empty shelves in the study.

Having this digital portfolio has also given me the raw materials to update my website with visual examples of my work (when I get a chance) or email new editors with clippings if they ask for them. Ideal for those pieces that never got published online.

I’m not sure there’s a cure for being a hoarder, but there’s certainly a way to stop it taking over your life – or wrecking your marriage. I can’t recommend Scan Film or Store highly enough, for everything from technical expertise to excellent customer service.

If they could do such a great job with my relatively small stash of magazines, imagine what they could do with a whole office storage room or even a warehouse full of paperwork?