Microsoft Office Word users can effectively stop a Word Document from being altered, misused or misunderstood. And it is the simplest and most effective element of efficient and affordable document management.
Rubber stamps are a common as telephones in an office — but inefficient and risky. Documents are routinely stamped with a myriad of legends for which there is a convenient rubber or self-inking stamp. However, ones that require a more complex legend than DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, COPY often go unmarked because there is no convenient method of document marking. When a document is distributed in an office, everyone understands the purpose of the rubber stamp: people may scribble their comments on the document marked DRAFT before it returning it to the originator or keep a “confidential document” from laying on the top of their desk or in the printer tray. Likewise, information workers try not to leave a document marked CONFIDENTIAL lying beside the photocopier.
Electronic documents are also marked in similar ways. For instance the header and the footer often contain information about the purpose or intent of the document. However, if such information is in the footer, it easily can go unnoticed unless the document is viewed “full page” or scrolled down to reveal the footer. And even then, because it is not always obvious, it may not be noticed as it should.
The problem with “watermark-type” identification, similar to rubber stamps, is that most photocopy machines can remove most branding and labeling and not leave a trace. The consequences of that are only limited by imagination. For example a document which is clearly stamped as COPY (using a watermark or marginal identification) can be copied again by the machine and the COPY stamp removed by changing the contrast setting or block out the stamp with paper. In this way a copy of a document is transformed into an original. When document identification can be so simple, it’s difficult to rationalize not doing it for all documents. Obviously, the use of an inexpensive self-inking rubber stamp can turn out to be a very expensive mistake.
Small business document management begins with protection for your documents when they are created. The best system is one that combines the text of the document with graphical marking — like a watermark — but it is non-contrast sensitive. That means that the marking cannot be removed by changing the setting on a copier or a scanner as well as being non-intrusive so the document is still easy to read. The branding or labeling also has to quickly convey the purpose or limitations of the document in the way that only an embedded graphic image stamp does. Remember, without document identification there cannot be any document management. Finding the document on the users computer doesn’t mean too much if its purpose has been altered or misunderstood by a recipient.
While Microsoft Word has the ability to do this type of marking — if you have the time and the knowledge of how to do it — there is a simpler way to accomplish this basic requirement with an add-in which meets the criteria of an essential element for the Electronic Document Management (EDM). This add-in for Microsoft Word, called StampIt, allows the documents – whether paper or PDF — to be created with the appropriate markings. When documents are circulated or distributed in either electronic or paper form, there will be no doubt as to the purpose or intent of the document. Identification is what makes documents “manageable.”
