Flounder and the Not-So-Mysterious Art of PDF File Compression

You want to scan your paper into your computer.

What’s the best way to do that?

To figure out the answer, you need to know what makes a computer file “good”

What Kind Of File Should I Use?

First, you want to make sure that your files are transportable between different applications and Operating Systems, ensuring that you’re not locked in to any one program or platform. You should ask “What is the most commonly-used format for the type of thing I’m working with?”

In this case, PDF files are the standard for scanned documents. Because it’s a standardized format, you can also use basic Mac programs like Preview and Finder to read and organize your documents. The format also works in / is understood by practically every “note-taking program” that exists.

This is a good thing.

How To Make A Good Thing Better

Since many users like us choose to use PDF-formatted files when we scan our papers, the next logical question becomes “How can we make these files, you know, work well in actual day-to-day use?”

To keep track and index many of my PDFs, I use a program called Evernote. It’s a web-connected app that helps you collect and search through tons of stuff quickly — PDFs, webpages, files, etc. You name it and Evernote can probably keep track of it for you. There are other great programs like DEVONthink Pro, Yojimbo, and ShoveBox which do the same thing (and, in some cases, do certain things better) — and these ideas are equally applicable to them as well.

Now that we’ve picked the type of file we’ll be using and also a way to keep track of the files, how can we make the files themselves as good as they can be?

The Flounder Principle

Like life itself, you often get out of technology what you put into it.

Or, to paraphrase the Dean Wormer character in the movie “Animal House”:

“Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life, Son.”

Let’s call this “The Flounder Principle”: Files can be judged by how “Fat” they are (size of the files), by how “Drunk” they are (clarity/resolution of the file), and by how “Stupid” they are (quality of metadata).

If you take a step back, I think you’ll see that the “Flounder Principle” is applicable to every type of digital file that people are working with today.

Sometimes, of course, you’ll want the file to be as “fat” as possible (like when archiving digital images, video, and sound). Other times, you’ll care more about the keeping the file size small while maintaining as much clarity as possible (emailing photos, MP3s, etc.).

Still other times, you don’t care if your file “gets a little drunk”, so long as it can still come across as reasonably intelligent (like documents that have been scanned from paper and had their text recognized by the computer).

The point is this — You’ll always need to assess how big a file is, how clear it is, and how intelligent it is to get the right balance for the context in which you’re working.

This is how you’ll know what “Good” means.

In our Scanning-to Evernote example, applying the “Flounder Principle” means:

• Keeping those file sizes small to stay under Evernote’s monthly quota for uploading files.
• Making the text of those files as clear as possible so that Evernote can recognize the text
• Making the note “smarter” by using notebooks, tagging, and other metadata

Why You Should Care (Reprised)

The files we’re making every day contain our life’s work and many of our memories — so perhaps we should be a little more thoughtful about just how we’re making them.

• If you’re a musician/film-maker/photographer, it can mean the difference between your work seeming dull… or feeling alive.
• If you’re at work, it can mean the difference between getting to go home on time and being stuck in your cubicle, watching the rainbow-colored beachball spin around while everyone else is walking out the door.
• It can help you bridge the time and distance with your loved-ones by allowing you to share and preserve your photos and videos.
• If your apartment gets flooded, it can mean having clear records so that you can talk to your insurance company with confidence (Trust me on this last one! 😉 )

These are not only worthwhile goals, but they are becoming our very ordinary, very human things.

And there’s nothing more “magical” than that!