The best way to digitize your documents

When you prepare to move, you can find yourself facing a a lot Paper documents. Holiday cards, rental contracts, messages, tax documents, notes, innovative logo graphics – whatever – can accumulate over time. If your choices are “keeping” or “trash” only, it may be difficult to abandon, even if you choose one of the most Responsible ways to get rid of your purposes. Digitability makes these decisions easier by adding a third option: creating a virtual version to save it goodbye to the physical paper.

These days, digitization only requires a smartphone or a tablet, but you will need to improve the process while reducing the risk of data loss.

Decide what to do with your papers

In my experience – I numbered the boxes on document boxes during the past six months – there are only a few records worth preserving after creating a digital version. These are the original government documents, or legal agreements such as the will or the current lease contract, or the elements that may lose their shape or meaning when they are reduced to pictures on the screen, and anything you may want to display in your home.

Of course, there will be exceptions. You may have decided to throw every birthday card, but keep your grandmother sent before her death. Or you may feel that you are the best to keep speculative copies of each tax document, although the Tax Authority says it is generally acceptable Cancel them after three years. You are doing.

What you will need to start

After deciding the fate of your documents, you can work. At least, you will need a laptop and a flat and clean surface like the table. Although this is technically enough to do this task, I also recommend having a computer, a way to transfer files between your devices (such as cable or Airdrop or cloud storage), photo editing software, and at least one backup motor.

If you have a truly overwhelming set of leaves, you may want to think about buying or borrowing a scanner for help. A scanner that comes with the nutrition unit can allow a set of documents quickly at one time instead of doing one at the same time, and most scanners can save images directly on your computer or to your cloud storage. Home lights that are often aimed at documents can work between $ 100 to $ 500, depending on their advantages and strength. Screens that deal with high -quality images may cost much more.

Personally, after using scanners in local, professional and academic environments, I think they are Great for archiveBut exaggerating most of the needs of people. I used my phone for my digitization project and I have no remorse.

Driving with your phone camera

There are three easy ways to take a digital image of any paper using your phone: with your camera application, a built -in scanning application, or a third -party scanning application. I use everything appropriate, depending on my digital version.

Although you are more likely to be more familiar with the camera application, it is not great for text documents, especially in particular, for multi -page reliability. However, I would like to use the usual cards and art camera application because it creates editor -in -law files that I can organize with signs.

Wiping applications, and at the same time, only PDFS comes out. I can use this method for heavy textual documents such as rental contracts and financial records. Both iOS and Android include compact surveying tools that are fully able to convert any document to PDF. On Android, you can use it D this drive application; With iPhone, you can use Either files or Notes application. All of these allow you to simply download your phone on paper and wait; The application determines the page and create a file automatically.

There are also a number of third -party applications that provide additional features to capture, edit and store PDF files. If you want more options than drive, notes or files, it may be useful to check what exists.

The best way to digitize pictures

Place the flat document in a well lit space without shades. Its weight if necessary, but try not to prevent anything important.

Knowledge will not matter the encyclopedia with the corners of the camera here. Hold your phone flat and accessible to your document, without throwing shadows on the page. I also recommend that your photos be divided immediately to save time and make pictures easier to see them in the organizer. If you take the cards, you can photograph the cover and the interior separately, then use the photo editing program to merge it into one file.

If you build a warehouse of digital documents on your phone and think about leaving them there – no. This is like hiding your birth certificate in a folder in an open window and confidence that it will not blow. To reduce the risks, transfer digital documents to a computer, backup engine, or cloud storage. Despite developments in storage technology, data loss is still happening, and it is more safe to keep your important files in at least two sites if something happens.

If you are using Google Drive to wipe your documents, you have already automatically installed them to the cloud. To send these documents to another device that cannot access Google Drive, you can download them with using Google Takeout.

If you use files or notes on iOS, you can check for sure Settings > (your name)> Icloud. If you are using files and want to send these files to another place, click Three points At the right top, hit He choosesChoose the files you want to transfer, and touch Share an icon At the bottom of the left (square with upward arrow). If you are using notes, click the note you want to transfer and select Share note. Then choose your favorite sharing method.

Regardless of where your files are – a computer, mobile device or cloud – you should really organize it so that you can find it later. If you have a system already suit you, great. But if you need a strategy, I recommend creating the higher level folders such as “cards” and “records” that describe the widest categories in your group. Within these, make more specified folders, such as “rent” and “select”. When you reach the bottom folders where the actual files live, try to call them constantly. If you really want to go hard, you can add signs and other identification data to your files.

It is important to understand that the goal here is not to completely get rid of anything that can be considered chaos – it is to find an effective solution to manage the elements in which we accumulate while we live our lives. There is nothing wrong with adhering to meaningful elements and conducting a size evaluation of its value from time to time. After all, drowning in a sea of ​​leaves may be bad, but living a life -free life and souvenirs may be worse.