Colonial Printing

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With all the methods of dealing with electronic document management, the “paperless office” is still a long way off. Everyday, documents are printed and left in printers for varying lengths of time or inadvertently (sometimes not) picked up by others. This is particularly the case where printers are shared. Workers print a document, and, if the printer is a personal printer, they have a tendency to leave it in the tray for extended periods of time. Others walk by, the desk is unattended for periods of time, and a number of other conditions occur where printed documents are unattended.

Without a invariable policy and simple method of paper document management, paper documents are insecure and unidentified as to purpose in far too many instances. In most cases, this may not cause a problem. But, when it does, the cost is steep. The price of a “DRAFT” becoming an ORIGINAL can be incalculable.

Unattended and unlabeled documents are an all to common event in daily business. We print documents for a multitude of reasons — frequently without any form of indicia to reflect our intent of to prevent misuse. Employing a rubber stamp in the margins of a document is a waste of time in ineffective.

The most efficient method of dealing with paper and PDF document management is to identify and label the document at the time it is printed. In the case of a PDF, the document marking should be done at the time it is created from Word. This requires both a method that is easily implemented and a policy requiring the action. If the PDF is not labeled or identified when it is created from Word, it requires a manual use manipulation and a PDF editing program to mark or stamp the document. Moreover, if the user wants to mark only selected pages of the PDF, each must be done individually which can be a tedious process.

As to the method, the document identification process must be systematic and capable of marking all the documents’ pages with appropriate and/or necessary indicia that is unalterable. The method must also be able to accept user-input to ensure that the marking is wholly appropriate for the document and handle extraordinary situations where truly custom stamps or legends are required.

While a stamp in the margin is better than no stamp at all, it doesn’t make much of an improvement over the old-fashioned rubber stamp. In order to be effective, the method must be automated. And the method must be capable of combining the text and the indicia in such a manner that it cannot be removed. User-friendliness is of paramount importance. If the use of the product requires data entry or command-line use, it is not likely to be used in an effective manner.

The use of a form of document marking known as “visible watermarks” is viable in low-traffic offices when the risk of misuse is low. However, this form of marking is far from secure. Using almost any one of the present-day photocopiers and increasing the contrast will result in an unmarked document that is virtually impossible to differentiate from the “original.” Using color offers better protection but is still subject to removal with current available technology.

Hollow/Outline, embedded non-contrast sensitive marking is considered the most secure form of document identification. This is where the stamp or legend is embedded in the text and is the same color as the text of the document. This prevents the stamp from being removed by a copier setting or just being covered up as can be done with a rubber stamp in the margin. The hollow/outline form of marking becomes part of the document itself – it cannot be removed. This is the most effective form of paper document management in an overall document management policy.

StampIt for Word is the standard for computerized document management and is the solution for eliminating the use of rubber stamps for paper document management. StampIt merges the power of word-processing with the power of your printer. It’s like having instant, total access to custom rubber stamps that are fully computerized.