Ira Wallin wrote: > > I want to catalogue lots of personal documents by scanning them in and storing > them in directories. In what format should I save them.....bmp? gif? jpg? > something else? It doesn't seem I should use .doc even for all text, since I > do not want to edit them at all. Since you've said that you don't intend to edit these documents once they're scanned, we can forget about OCR'ing them into text documents and storing them that way. This leaves you with the task of scanning and storing them as graphical representations of the original. To that end, it partially depends on the type and quantity of documents you have, and the amount of storage space you can allocate. If they are simple black text on white paper, then GIF would make a fine choice because of it's small file size and accurate rendition of (up to) 256 colors. On the other hand, if your documents are in full color, (meaning more than 256 colors), then the GIF format will distort them by limiting the amount of color information. JPG can retain millions of colors, but because of its lossy compression, it frequently "smears" the colors, especially if the source has lots of straight lines and instances where one color lies directly beside another very contrasting color. In that case, a lossless format would preserve the original the best, such as BMP or TIF, but as with any lossless format, the file sizes tend to grow quite large, relative to the lossy formats such as GIF and JPG. Only you can decide what a proper tradeoff is, given your particular circumstances. Hopefully, just knowing each format's limitations will make it easier to pick the right one. I'd recommend experimenting with your scanner settings, and once you're happy with them, then also experiment with different file formats. For additional scan tips, check out http://www.scantips.com. Jeff Delzer Curious about the people moderating your messages? Visit our staff web site: http://nospin.com/pc/staff.html