Digitizing Data: Key Tips and Tricks to Save You Time and Hassle

Digitizing data is becoming a norm in recent working culture, and rightly so. You get information quickly accessible at your fingertips, streamlining workflow and helping you boost your productivity. However, key tips and tricks for digitizing data are seldom known.

In this post, we aim to highlight such techniques to help you save time, reduce manual efforts, and maintain organized records. We will also cover some best practices and tools that you can utilize for a better workflow. So, let’s get started.

What Is Data Digitization and Why Is It Important?

Data digitization refers to the process of converting physical pieces of information, handwritten notes, images, or printed documents into digital formats. 

It is a vital process to make your data available all the time by leveraging cloud storage solutions. Plus, word-processing software and file managers on PCs, laptops, etc., ensure that searching and indexing data is rapid and accurate.

Reasons to Digitize Data

Although there can be many reasons to digitize data, the main and most common reasons are discussed below.

• Saves Time: Digital files are much easier and faster to find as compared to piles of paper.
• Reduces Hassle: Organizing physical data can be a nightmare. Digitized data can be categorized and stored efficiently.
• Boosts Security: There are many options to secure digital data, like encryption and secure backups.
• Enhances Sustainability: By going digital, you reduce paper usage, contributing positively to the environment.

Other reasons include saving overheads for storing physical files in vaults or storage units, reducing labor to take care of such documents, etc.

Identifying Data Suitable for Digitization

Even though we do know that digitizing data is helpful, sometimes it is not clear which documents are worth the effort. 

If we are strictly talking about documents, you can have contracts, financial records, meeting notes, etc. 

Images can be of many types and shapes, like photographs or historical records, screenshots of crucial information, infographics, and more. You can also have handwritten notes with a scanned copy of notebooks or brainstorming sessions.

The true questions that you want to ask yourself when determining whether to digitize data or not are

• Will this data be referenced regularly?
• Does it contain critical information that needs secure storage?
• Is it likely to degrade or become damaged over time?

If your answer is yes to any of the given questions, then you must consider digitizing that data for secure storage, better accessibility, or both.

Choosing the Right Digitization Tools

To digitize data effectively, you’ll need reliable tools that can do the job according to your needs.

However, since this space is taken up by a lot of tools on the internet, finding good digitization solutions has become a bit difficult. This is especially true for users who have little to no prior knowledge about such technology, which is why we are here to help.

We scavenged different tools online to come up with the following options for your convenience:

1. Picture to Text

Credits: https://www.picturetotext.org

The Picture to Text tool converts images in PDF, PNG, JPG, TIFF, and other file formats to editable text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.

Key Features:

• Extract complex data, including mathematical equations.
• Batch-process images (3 at a time).
• Provides an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface.
• Facilitates free functionality with no signups required.

Best For:

Professionals working on contracts, handwritten notes, or screenshots.