Software now enables you to link an exact image of your important documents to document database records. They are then available for instant viewing at the touch of a key. If you have a question about a document at a deposition, or if you want to review the document while preparing a motion for summary judgment, then at the touch of a key, the document can appear on your screen for review and analysis. Imaging software also enables you to print an exact copy of that imaged document instantaneously.

Imaging enables you to zoom in on a portion of the image, flip the image from top to bottom, mirror the image, and change the brightness, contrast, sharpness, or linearization of the image. With the rapid decrease in imaging cost and the technological breakthrough with CD-ROM writers, imaging the documents in a case has become a cost-effective and timesaving process.

The key to connecting an image is to “link” it to the database record. An image is an electronic snapshot of a document. The words on the image cannot be searched, since they are not in a full text format. Therefore, you have to connect the image to the database and then search the database for the image you want to view. Generally, one has to manually link the image to each database record; then the viewing of the image is always available. Systems have been developed to automate this process by saving the image under a filename, which is subsequently downloaded into a database field. This downloading creates the “link” necessary for the viewing of the document, which saves countless hours of data entry and linking.

To the right is a flowchart incorporating a database, imaging, and full text system into a litigation or administrative workflow. The key index terms are entered into a relational database.

See also, Chapter 7, Integrating Images With Your Database.