What DPI Should be Used for Scanning Microfiche?

Quite simply, a 200DPI resolution should suffice for most microfiche conversions to digital images (like TIFF or PDF). 300DPI is used for images that will be used for OCR or ICR. 300DPI increased the filesize of an image and slows down the microfiche scanner slightly. 400DPI is used for researchers, but the filesizes can become unmanageable at that resolution, and it seen as overkill anyway.

Here is a list of microfiche scanning questions that help us give microfiche conversion prices:

1) What type of microfiche needs to be scanned- The different types of microfiche are COM fiche, jacketed fiche, rewritable fiche, and step-and-repeat.

2) Do the images need to be indexed and named in a certain way? Generally clients just need virtual folders named sequentially or by microfiche header label, however other times they would need data entry from fields, like SSN, Names, or Case Numbers.

3) What is the preferred image file format? Group IV TIFF, PDF, JPEG, Uncompressed TIFF, bi-tonal images, greyscale images, multi-tiffs, multi-PDFs, searchable OCR PDFs, or another image format?

4) If you are already using a document management system or you have your own document management software, you must comply to the requested file format.Please let us know what file format that is.

5) What is the output media? CD, DVD, external USB hard drive, FTP, or flash drive, etc.

6) What is the microfiche conversion turnaround time? When does the microfiche need to be shipped back, and at what priority? If it is a large microfiche project, can the fiche be released all at once or in waves? What is the deadline to deliver the images?