TIFF is a flexible, non-lossy, and high-quality file format. What sets it apart from other formats, such as PNG, is that it can store multiple images in one file, an important feature for organizing documents.
In this article, you will learn more about TIFF, and how the high-quality image format streamlines document management when combined with mobile document scanner software.
What is TIFF?
The Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) is a file type for saving raster graphics. As such, it represents a two-dimensional image as a rectangular grid of pixels containing color information.
Its ability to preserve image quality without loss during compression makes it a popular choice for professional applications where high image quality is needed, such as photography. At the same time, TIFF can also handle lossy compression, preserving image quality while reducing file size.
TIFF files contain rich metadata, such as camera settings, creation dates, copyright information, and timestamps.
TIFF advantages
TIFF is especially suitable in scenarios where image quality, editing flexibility, and data preservation are critical. These are its advantages:
- Versatility and flexibility: TIFF can store multiple images in one file, which is useful for archiving, searching, and managing high image volumes. Its ability to handle both lossless and lossy compression offers flexibility in balancing image quality against file size.
- High image quality: During compression, TIFF preserves image quality without any loss of information. Lossless formats like TIFF are popular in use cases that require high precision, such as medical image analysis.
- Suitable for scanning and storage: Their higher image-quality makes TIFF files suitable for OCR processing. OCR software recognizes and extracts data from documents and turns it into machine-readable data. The higher the image quality, the more effectively the OCR software can detect and recognize text.
Besides long-time storage, TIFF is ideal for scanning large volumes of documents thanks to its ability to save them into one file. Pages can be added, removed, or changed – in any image editor that supports the TIFF format.
Mobile TIFF scanners
Leveraging their high-quality cameras, modern document scanner software turns even standard smartphones and tablets into powerful document scanners. These mobile scanners are not only easy to use, but can run the more advanced OCR software to enhance scan quality.
How mobile TIFF scanners enhance business operations
Thanks to their ease-of-use and ubiquitous nature, smart devices are the perfect document scanning solution for any business. Mobile document scanners with TIFF output have the following advantages.
- Availability of information: After uploading them to a document management system, digitized documents are instantly available to all employees, and accessing them takes only seconds. Thanks to mobile document scanning, endlessly searching for and organizing paper files becomes a thing of the past.
- Effective storage: Paper files are prone to physical damage, or can be lost. Scanning and uploading documents to a backend system enables storing them in unchanging quality, in a system that can be searched digitally. At the same time, this significantly reduces the physical space needed for storage.
- Enhanced efficiency: Mobile document scanning significantly simplifies the scanning process. With smartphones or tablets, employees can scan documents whenever and wherever, without having to wait in line to use a shared flatbed scanner. These time savings benefit operational efficiency.
- Data security: Paper files always pose a security risk due to unauthorized access. Digitally stored files can be protected by encryption.
Implementation: Create TIFF documents with the Scanbot SDK
With the Scanbot Document Scanner SDK, mobile document scanners replace static flatbed scanners. Thanks to features such as automatic capture, user guidance, and auto-cropping, document scanning is a breeze for everyone.
The Scanbot SDK processes data on-device, with no connection to third-party servers, ensuring complete data security. The SDK can optionally encrypt TIFF files, offering an even higher level of protection. To decrypt the TIFF file, a provided or self-generated encryption key can be used.
Here is an example of how you can set up a fully functional TIFF scanner with just a few lines of JavaScript code using the Scanbot Web Document Scanner SDK:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=0" />
<title>TIFF Scanner</title>
</head>
<body style="margin: 0">
<button id="scan-document">Scan document</button>
<button id="export-tiff">Export TIFF</button>
<pre id="result"></pre>
<script type="module">
import "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/scanbot-web-sdk@7.0.0/bundle/ScanbotSDK.ui2.min.js";
async function initializeSDK() {
const sdk = await ScanbotSDK.initialize({
enginePath: "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/scanbot-web-sdk@7.0.0/bundle/bin/complete/"
});
let scanResult;
document.getElementById("scan-document").addEventListener("click", async () => {
const config = new ScanbotSDK.UI.Config.DocumentScanningFlow();
scanResult = await ScanbotSDK.UI.createDocumentScanner(config);
});
document.getElementById("export-tiff").addEventListener("click", async () => {
const pages = scanResult?.document?.pages;
if (!pages || !pages.length) {
alert("Please scan a document first.");
return;
}
const options = { dpi: 300 };
const generator = await sdk.beginTiff(options);
await generator.addPages(scanResult.document, { binarize: "YES" });
const bytes = await generator.complete();
function saveBytes(data, name) {
const extension = name.split(".")[1];
const a = document.createElement("a");
document.body.appendChild(a);
a.style = "display: none";
const blob = new Blob([data], {type: `application/${extension}`});
const url = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
a.href = url;
a.download = name;
a.click();
window.URL.revokeObjectURL(url);
}
saveBytes(bytes, "generated.tiff");
});
}
initializeSDK();
</script>
</body>
</html>Feel free to copy the code into an HTML file and run it on your development server (HTTPS connection required). Please note that using jsDelivr is not recommended for production environments. Instead, you can download the SDK and host it on your server.
For a more comprehensive look at the Scanbot SDK feature set, you can also try our free demo apps. Contact us at sdk@scanbot.io if you would like to know more about our solution.
