Colour or Black-and-White Document Scanning?

Choose a scanning colour mode by what people must understand from the record. A page with a coloured logo may have different needs from a page whose colours distinguish decisions, annotations or chart categories. Before approving one setting for a whole archive, identify those differences.

For a Sydney office arranging document scanning, the useful question is: "What would become unclear if this page lost its colour or shading?" The method below is a suggested way to write that requirement. It is not a claim about a supplier's equipment or a record of completed Pexatech work.

Clarify colour, greyscale and black and white

In this guide, the three modes mean:

• Black and white, or bi-tonal: each pixel is black or white, without intermediate grey.
• Greyscale: the image includes shades of grey, but not the original hues.
• Colour: the image can represent colour distinctions as well as tonal detail.

State Records NSW's digitisation specifications distinguish these modes and connect their selection to the information in the source. The guidance is written for NSW public offices; it is not a universal specification for commercial scanning jobs.

Ask a supplier what "black and white" means in its proposal. Then describe the required result: retaining a faint pencil total is more useful than leaving the supplier to infer your needs from that label alone.

Identify what colour contributes

Ask a person familiar with the documents to identify any meaning carried by colour. State Records NSW's guidance treats coloured annotations as an example where colour can matter, while letterhead colour may be incidental. Apply that distinction to your records' intended use.

For each document group, finish this sentence: "The reader needs to distinguish ___ from ___ because ___." For example, a fictional report might use blue and red lines for different product categories. The requirement would be to distinguish those categories and match each line to its legend, rather than merely to make the chart look attractive.

Check the whole document before assigning its mode. A routine typed letter may have an annotated attachment, or a form may include a note on the reverse. Avoid using the first page as the only basis for classifying the rest.

Colour does not need to be meaningful for shading to matter. Identify faint writing, shaded cells or photographic detail separately. If colour fidelity itself is a specialist requirement, describe it explicitly: selecting a colour mode alone does not define an agreed colour-matching result.

Use a decision table for a mixed folder

The following folder and requirements are entirely fictional. They illustrate a buyer's proposed decisions, not client records, tested settings or a Pexatech service package. Each starting request still needs assessment with the supplier.

The last row is a decision in its own right. "Needs clarification" prevents an uncertain page from silently inheriting the setting used for ordinary text.

Agree how exceptions will be handled

Decide whether the proposed mode applies to an entire document, a defined group or particular pages. Ask how an exception will be flagged during preparation or capture, who can approve a different mode and what happens while an answer is pending.

If automatic colour detection is proposed, include known exceptions in the assessment and ask how incorrectly classified pages will be found and corrected. Do not treat the name of a feature as evidence that it will identify every meaningful mark in your records.

Keep document boundaries and page order clear. A colour attachment should remain identifiable with its parent record even if it needs different processing. Agree whether that means a single delivered PDF or clearly linked files; confirm the supplier's supported output before accepting the specification.

If the aim is to meet an upload limit, carry that requirement into the scanned PDF file-size guide. Keep the colour decision tied to information that must remain usable, rather than assuming a particular reduction in bytes or price.

Compare the distinctions, then check searchable text

For the modes under consideration, ask to compare the same relevant source pages in the proposed final output. Record the document reference, candidate mode and the detail being checked. A useful observation is "the pencil total remains readable" or "the two chart categories cannot be distinguished", rather than a general quality score.

View the files in the application staff will use. If printing is part of the task, include the intended printing arrangement in the comparison. Record an unresolved difference for investigation instead of deciding from a thumbnail alone.

Check OCR separately when searchable output is required. Adobe's text-recognition guidance explains that Acrobat creates a searchable text layer and calls for review of the recognised text. It is a product example, not evidence that Pexatech uses Acrobat or that one colour mode always produces better OCR.

Choose a known reference to search for and compare copied text with the visible page. For wider completeness and acceptance checks, use the document scanning quality checklist. Keep this comparison focused on whether the proposed mode preserves the distinctions you identified.

Put the decision into the scanning brief

For each group, record: document reference; intended use; meaningful colour or shading; proposed mode; exception rule; reviewer; and comparison result. Mark an untested proposal as untested. Keep the agreed version with the scanning scope so a later change can be assessed against the same requirement.

Start an enquiry with the document types and the details that matter when discussing document scanning services. Confirm capability, handling and timing before sharing records. If a comparison would help resolve the choice, the scanning pilot guide explains how to give that trial a specific decision to support.