With all the methods of dealing with electronic document management, the "paperless office" is still a long way off. Often, documents are printed and left in printers for varying lengths of time or inadvertently (sometimes not) picked up by others. This is particularly the case where printers are shared. Workers print a document, and, if the printer is a personal printer, they have a tendency to leave it in the tray for extended periods of time. Others walk by, the desk is unattended for periods of time, and a multitude of other conditions occur where printed documents are unattended.

Where the is no regular policy and user-friendly method of document protection, printed documents are subject to misuse and misinterpretation. While this may not be a common issue, when it does happen -- and a document is misused -- the price can be inestimable.

This situation is only too common in any number of companies and recurs every hour of every day. Paper documents are printed for review, collaboration, sharing or dissemination. The startling fact is that they are all too often printed without any type of identification indicating the intent or purpose of the document. For over a hundred years, a common practice was to use a rubber stamp in the top margin of the page. That was, and mostly is, the most common form of paper document management.

Applying visible classification to documents should be done when the document is created. PDF documents created from Word require additional steps to apply this marking and, if marking is required on specific pages only, the job gets more difficult.

It is essential that your paper document management process be able to make your document unmodifiable. Additionally, it should be able to mark one, all or selected pages of any document. And your method must be dynamic in allowing the instant creation of markings to meet any requirements.

While a stamp in the margin is better than no stamp at all, it doesn't make much of an improvement over the antiquated rubber stamp. In order to be effective, the method must be automated. And the method must be capable of combining the text and the indicia in such a manner that it cannot be removed. User-friendliness is of paramount importance. If the use of the product requires data entry or command-line use, it is not likely to be used in an effective manner.

Shaded gray images (watermarks) are useful in small settings and where mishandling or misappropriation are low-risk. However, the security provided by this marking minimal given today's copier technology. Using shaded color offer additional protection but still doesn't prevent alteration or duplication and deletion of the marking.

Document marking that is embedded in the body/text of a document is the most reliable. This form of marking is where the marking is the same color as the body text which prevents the removal-by-copier scenario. Under this condition there is no marking that can be covered or "dropped" out of the document. This method provides the most paper document security in a document management program.