GIFs have carved out a place for themselves in internet culture. What most don’t know is that the format was initially intended for the easy transmission of color images over slow internet connections. However, until 2004, GIF was encumbered by patents, much to the frustration of internet users who sought to transfer image files.
That’s why, back in 1996, PNG was born. Originally designed as a patent-free alternative to GIF, this versatile, lossless format is now a standard image file format, supported by all major web browsers and operating systems.
What sets PNG apart from other file formats, and why is it a great choice for business document scanning? Find out more in this article.
What is PNG?
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a file format specifically designed for transferring images over the internet.
Like TIFF, PNG uses lossless data compression, reducing file size without compromising image quality. For this, an algorithm detects patterns and repetitions in image data. These patterns are then replaced with shorter codes or references, reducing file size without altering the visual content or quality of the image.
Since the original data can be perfectly reconstructed after decompression, PNG is highly suitable for scenarios requiring precise replication of the original image.
Thanks to this, it produces less pixelated files than lossy formats, while still shortening transfer time.
All this makes PNG an ideal output format for scanning documents with text, lines, handwriting, or text-heavy images and transferring them for processing in a backend system.
How PNG benefits business operations
PNG is compatible with almost any graphic program, image viewer, or web browser, making it a popular choice, especially for web design professionals. But the broad support isn’t the only benefit that makes the PNG format valuable for operations across industries.
Let’s take a quick look at the advantages this versatile format offers:
- Lossless compression: Since it was developed for fast internet transfers, PNG offers non-lossy image file compression. This guarantees high image quality and easy transfer and storage.
- Transparency support: PNG provides per-pixel transparency information through alpha channels. This makes PNG files especially useful for graphics, charts, and logos.
- Transfer efficiency: PNG files transfer efficiently, especially when optimized.
- Open file format: PNG is an open format, meaning everyone can use and implement it without licensing issues.
- High compatibility: PNG is a standard file format, supported by almost every major web browser, file viewer, and graphics editing software. This prevents compatibility issues.
Industry applications for PNG scanning
Its ability to maintain high image quality during compression makes PNG the perfect image format for scanning documents with small text.
Notably, PNG files preserve sharp edges and intricate details without pixelation – ideal for use cases requiring precise document reproduction or integration into digital workflows.
PNG scanners are thus widespread in:
- Healthcare: Digitizing medical records or diagnostic images, such as X-rays, requires the precision that PNG offers to ensure safe patient care and regulatory compliance.
- Legal and financial services: When scanning contracts, case files, loan agreements, account details, and customer records, using a PNG scanner protects data integrity. The high scan quality results in seamless processing and streamlines document management.
- Insurance companies: Policies, claims forms, customer records, and other essential documents can be efficiently processed using a PNG scanner.
- Government agencies: By accurately capturing tax records, permits, and legal documents, government agencies can enhance administrative efficiency and transparency.
- Manufacturing: By documenting production processes, quality control records, and compliance documents in high quality, manufacturers establish thorough audit trails.
- Architecture and engineering: PNG is the perfect format for digitizing high-precision documents such as blueprints and design drawings, thanks to its non-lossy nature.
- User-facing applications: User-facing apps facilitate document management in a variety of industries. With the PNG output format, even novice users can take high-quality scans of documents that are suitable for automatic and manual processing.
Achieve highly accurate scans with mobile PNG scanner apps
Modern smartphones are a high-performing alternative to clumsy flatbed scanners. Thanks to modern document scanner software, businesses can easily integrate document scanning capabilities into their internal or customer-facing applications. Users can then easily convert documents into PNG format – without the need for additional converter tools.
Smartphones have numerous advantages: They are easy to use and require minimal training time, don’t take up much space, and can be used everywhere and anytime. Instead of taking documents to the scanner, your employees simply whip out their smartphone and perform a quick scan.
Mobile PNG scanners use advanced image processing and image correcting algorithms, such as filters and deskewing, to achieve accurate scan results.
Introducing the Scanbot Document Scanner SDK
With the Scanbot Document Scanner SDK, organizations can replace flatbed scanners with mobile document scanners – no more need for costly, dedicated devices. Thanks to features such as automatic capture, user guidance, and auto-cropping, document scanning is a breeze for everyone.
To take scan quality to the next level, the Scanbot SDK Document Quality Analyzer prevents low-quality scan submissions.
For complete data security, the Scanbot SDK processes data on-device, without any connection to third-party servers. Thanks to our ready-to-use UI components, you can rapidly build a document scanner app perfectly tailored to your use case.
Are you curious to see the Scanbot Document Scanner SDK in action? Try our free document scanner demo apps for iOS, Android, and Web. Or contact us at sdk@scanbot.io to learn more about our solution.
