When documents are printed they are often done so without any branding or layer of protection. In a shared-printer environment, this is even more of a regular occurrencewhere they are left in printer trays for others to see or whatever. Information workers, temporary staff, guests and others may be walking by the printer where the document(s) are in full view.
Without a constant 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 unidentified documents are an all to common event in daily business. We print documents for many of reasons — frequently without any form of label 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.
Branding and marking of a document should be done when the document is printed or made into a PDF from Microsoft Word. In the case of a PDF, if the document is not stamped when it is created, it requires the worker to run another program to put the stamp on the document. If only selected pages of the PDF required marking, the process become more time-consuming.
If a paper document management program is to be successful, it must be able to mark a document in a manner that makes the document incapable of alteration. The program should, likewise, be flexible to accommodate the marking of any combination of pages based on simple user input. Finally, it must be able to create most any type of marking the worker requires.
While a stamp in the margin is better than no stamp at all, it doesn’t make much of an improvement over the antiquated 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.
Visible watermarks, while good for intra-office work and controlled-print environments, are not the most secure form of document identification. The visible watermark, if in shaded gray, can be almost instantly removed by a contrast setting on any number of copy machines with that setting. Color watermarks are a little more secure method, but still are subject to removal in a similar manner.
Marking that cannot be removed from a printed document is the most secure form of protection. This is accomplished by embedding a outline of the stamps in such a manner as to not interfere with reading of the document. There is no way to cover or easily remove this type of indicia from a document.
StampIt for Word is the method for automated document marking and is the answer for eliminating the use of rubber stamps for paper document marking. StampIt combines the power of a word-processor with the clout of your printer. It’s like having immediate, total access to perfect rubber stamps that are fully automated.
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