Office workers out there know the struggles of managing dozens of documents on a daily basis. If document management is giving you headaches as well, this article is for you! We have the solutions for seven of the biggest document management challenges. Keep reading below to find out what these solutions are.
Document management can really test if you have nerves of steel. Whether it’s the workflow, data entry, a lot of paperwork, or a combination of these things, it can be really overwhelming.
Businesses and offices are document hoarders. It takes archiving, storing, editing, and sharing documents, both digital and paper. That is a lot of work to do, and there are also many challenges that can arise.
If you handle documents on your own, the following document management challenges will sound really familiar to you, and the solutions we offer will be life-saving.
Here are the seven biggest document management challenges and how to overcome them:
1. Time Consuming
There’s likely no other task more time-consuming than handling documents, especially paper documents. Everything from writing the document to editing it, converting it into a different format, and sharing it takes time (and a lot of nerves). The time and energy you put into handling documents could have been used on plenty of other more productive tasks.
Solution: give up the aging paper document management system and consider digitalizing your paper records into electronic documents. Electronic documents take a lot less time to edit, convert or share as these are tasks that can be done with just a few clicks, saving you time and effort.
2. Sharing documents
Sharing a document with multiple parties can take a lot of time if you have to reach out to each person individually. But you don’t have to waste this much time sharing documents.
Solution: Google Drive, for example, is a great tool to share the same document with multiple users at once. All you have to do is to upload the file and get the link to share, and each person who will get the tool will be able to see or edit the document based on your settings.
Also Read: Best Solutions to Transfer and Sync Data- Dropbox to Google Drive
3. Security
Document security is paramount these days, especially if you have your paperwork digitalized. Your official papers likely contain a lot of sensitive business or customer data that needs to be held securely. Keep in mind that cybercriminals don’t only target big companies but also small businesses.
Paper documents are also at risk, if not of being stolen, the risk of being destroyed. Imagine how much paperwork would be lost in, say, a fire at your office. So, how do you make sure you keep documents safe?
Solution: Once again, an electronic document management system can help keep your documents safe from hackers and accidents. Electronic documents can be protected in thousands of ways using security software, security tools, and antivirus software. Plus, copies of electronic documents can also be backed up in the cloud so that you will be sure that they will never be completely lost no matter what.
4. Editing documents for mistakes
When it comes to business documents, you simply can’t afford to have even one tiny spelling or grammar mistake in them. These documents will be seen and read by important people in your company, from directors to marketing specialists or even clients. Grammar or spelling mistakes in official documents are a big proof of a lack of professionalism and can hurt your business’s image.
For this reason, you need to make sure that all the documents you are handling are edited before sending them to supervisors, clients, or whatever other business parties.
Yet, editing can be really time-consuming. Not to mention that the human eye can miss many of the mistakes that may be in the document.
Solution: When it comes to editing too it is best to transform your paper documents into electronic ones. If your documents are digital, you can easily use editing software that will scan your text and identify all spelling, grammar, and even style mistakes and help you edit them within just a few minutes.
For example, Grammarly is a very popular editing tool that quickly finds your style, grammar, and spelling mistakes. Another editing tool is HemingwayApp, which, besides helping you edit grammar and spelling mistakes, also lets you know which sentences are too long or too difficult to understand.
5. Converting documents
Did you ever have to convert a document from one format to another just because your clients or supervisor asked for a different format? Sounds really difficult at first.
Electronic documents can be converted into different formats. For example, text documents, spreadsheets, or presentations can be converted to PDF and vice versa. You may also need to convert image files like JPG to PDF. How can you easily convert text or image files documents into PDF or other formats?
Solution: You can convert electronic documents from one format to another within minutes using the right tools. For example, to convert or edit PDF documents, you can use PDFChef by Movavi tool. Other tools allow you to convert PDF files into text documents. Converting challenges will be gone in a second if you use the right tools.
6. Text recognition
Need to get the text out of an image or scanned image? You then have to copy it into other programs or formats. That can take a while and can be really annoying. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Solution: Text recognition tools allow you to capture text from a scanned image and copy it in the form of text in other programs you use. For example, if you have a scanned PDF and need to copy the text from it, a text recognition tool allows you to do so within seconds.
7. Comparing texts
You’ve likely received some documents back, and the sender told you that they’d made some changes. But, when you scroll down through the document, you can’t spot any difference. Well, reading each line to find the edits can be really annoying and time-consuming. Is there a faster and more efficient way to compare two different versions of the same document? Yes, there is!
Solution: There are many document comparison tools that allow you to compare two different versions of the same document and show you the differences within seconds. Even Word document has a feature that allows you to compare two versions.
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