Document Management 101
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by: A.A. Roberts
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Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 Time: 2:31 PM
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Using self-inking stamps or manual watermarks for business document management can be a tough habit to break. And, it can pose serious risks to your document security and data -- and your business -- particularly where there are multiple copies of a multi-page document that must be identified and distributed. Finally, if the document is given on to another person, how do you ensure its purpose and intent are maintained?
Efficient document management cannot be done manually without inviting risk into the document's lifecycle. Moreover, the manual process usually involves using a remote copy machine that results in substantial wasted time. If only one trip per day to a copy machine is eliminated, the savings per year/per worker approach $800. Further, the only way a rubber stamp can truly be effective at preserving the intent or purpose of a document is to obliterate part of the text -- that's not exactly a recipe for effective communication. Similarly, electronic documents like PDF can be printed with the same quality as a Word document. And that is the reason that electronic documents, like paper, should be labeled and identified when they are created.
If a paper document is to be secure and protected - particularly one with multiple pages - each page of the document must be identified in a manner that precludes alteration. Certainly a rubber stamp doesn't work here. Where multiple copies of the document are intended for different recipients, those copies should be similarly marked to indicate the recipient and/or purpose, e.g. "Client Copy," "Marketing," "Privileged," Not for Release, etc. Otherwise, at least the first page of each copy needs to be stamped - which is a risky practice.
This form of paper document management is usually accomplished in one of three ways: rubber stamps, header/footer text or manually inserted and removed watermarks. If the rubber stamp form of document management is used with any degree of effectiveness, the stamp collection is exhaustive and unwieldy. While the header or footer text affords some degree of identification, it does not reach the level of true document protection. Watermarks by their nature afford some protection. However, they must be manually applied and removed and are subject to drop-out by copier and scanner settings.
When a multi-page document is marked with a rubber stamp on just the first page or marked with a visible gray watermark, the document's purpose or content can be easily changed. While this may not be of concern most of the time, when it does happen, there is always the "we could have....." Today's scanner and copiers make it possible to duplicate a document to the degree that it is almost impossible to distinguish between the "copy" and the original.
A recent review of the Epson GT-S50 scanner on Amazon noted: ". . .The Epson also has the ability to drop out colors, which is useful when scanning something printed on colored paper. It would also be useful if you need to remove a red "confidential" or "top secret" stamp from a borrowed document. :)" See the Epson GT-S50 review by W.B. Halper.
Rubber stamps, usually placed in the margins of paper documents, do not provide paper document security or protection. In order to use a rubber stamp, it has to exist (i.e., the appropriate stamp) and manual application of the stamp is not only inconvenient, but it costs time and money in addition to the permanent risk being created.
PDF files, in most cases, originate from a Word document. If the PDF file is unmarked, then the document can be printed without any restrictive indicia embedded in the text of the document. From this point, the document can be altered and rescanned to a PDF. Thus, the PDF file is no more secure than the original Word document if it is not marked in an manner that precludes alteration of the printed result. Marking PDF files at the time of creation as well as marking printed documents WHEN then are printed is the only way to reduce document security risk.
A simple choice can be made: Mark the document or don't. It costs virtually nothing to do so when the process is automated. The cost can be astronomical if the document is eventually altered, misused or misinterpreted. While all the tools are part of Word, it is the StampIt automation of those features that makes this process one that is easy to implement and simple to use as an everyday process in document creation. Just as numerous document management programs seek to provide access restrictions, StampIt provides security for the paper and PDF documents we print and/or create each day.
About the Author
StampIt is an automated method for dealing with the paper component of document management. Rubber stamps can be thrown away and fiddling with headers/footers or watermarks is over. Get the FREE TRIAL and see how your paper and PDF documents should be protected.
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