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Archive scanned documents with PDF4me Workflows

Jun 14, 2022 · Automate the process of recognizing text in scanned documents and creating PDF/A files for long-term archiving using PDF4me Workflows.

We all have important documents that need to be saved and preserved for future use. Physical documents will always have a risk of getting lost due to various factors. It becomes important to scan or capture these documents for digitalizing them for long-term archiving. Document scans can be created using your mobile device by just taking a clear picture of your document with a phone camera or creating proper scans with the help of apps like PDF4me Scan & Automation.

Once you have the PDFs created using scans of documents or images of documents, you can process this for long-term archiving. For this, you would be required to do two things to the PDF files - Use OCR for recognizing the test and transform it to PDF/A so it can be used even after a long time. PDF4me Workflows automation platform lets you automate this entire process and archive hundreds or thousands of your valuable documents.

How to archive scanned documents?

Archiving of documents can be automated efficiently using the PDF4me Workflows automation. The process involves gathering scanned documents, applying PDF OCR if required, and creating PDF/A from the scanned documents. Let us look at an example workflow for archiving of documents.

Add a trigger for the Workflow

Add and configure a Dropbox or Google Drive trigger to start the Workflow. In this example let us configure a Dropbox trigger. Map the folder in which the scanned documents will be available for further processing.

Dropbox trigger for archive workflows

Add PDF OCR action

Most often we might have to recognize the text in these PDF documents. For this, we can use the PDF OCR action for Workflows. The action also gives you the option to only work if there is any unrecognized text in the document.

PDF OCR action for archive Workflow

Add Create PDF/A action

The PDF/A conformance ensures these documents can be rendered and retrieved exactly like the original using PDF software or viewers. Add and configure the Create PDF/A action. Select the conformance level or version and map the rest of the fields to the trigger output.

Create PDF/A action for archiving

Add Save to Dropbox action

Once the PDF files are processed for archiving, they need to be saved to file storage You can use various save options supported by PDF4me. For our use case, let us add and configure a Save to Dropbox action.

Save to Dropbox action for Workflows

Get your documents done.

Build it into your product with the API, automate it with no code, or use the free tools in your browser. No credit card to begin.

Start with a single callcurl -X POST https://api.pdf4me.com/v1/ConvertToPdf

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