Formatting Cross References

Ref: http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/formatcrossreferences.htm#FormatAll

Cross-references are one of Word’s most useful features, but users are often dissatisfied with the way they are formatted. This article will discuss how to force Word to use your preferred formatting. First, however, it will explain what a cross-reference is and how to insert one. If you already know all that, you can jump immediately to the section that interests you. What is a cross-reference? How to insert a cross-reference Important concepts Formatting footnote and endnote references Case formatting of cross-references Font formatting of cross-references Formatting cross-references en masse What is a cross-reference? You probably know in general what a cross-reference is. Whenever you write, “see page 15” or “in Chapter 5” or “in the Further Developments section,” you are using a cross-reference. If you insert such cross-references as ordinary text, you will have to update them manually if pagination changes or Chapter 5 becomes Chapter 6 or you change the heading “Further Developments” to “Later Developments.” Word, however, provides a way to insert a cross-reference so that it can be updated semi-automatically when the target changes. How to insert a cross-reference? In all versions of Word, you insert a cross-reference using the Cross-reference dialog. How you get there depends on the version: In Word 2007, 2010, and 2013: Display the References tab. In the Captions group, click on the Cross-reference button. In Word 2002 and 2003: On the Insert menu, choose Reference, then Cross-reference… In Word 2000 and earlier: On the Insert menu, choose Cross-reference… Figure 1. The Cross-reference dialog As you can see in Figure 1, the dialog offers two dropdowns: “Reference type” and “Insert reference to.” The reference types offered include Numbered item, Heading, Bookmark, Footnote, Endnote, Equation, Figure, and Table, plus any other caption labels you have defined (“My New Caption” in Figure 1). What this means is that you can easily insert a cross-reference to any paragraph formatted with one of Word’s built-in heading styles, any paragraph that has been numbered using Word’s Numbering feature, or any footnote, endnote, or caption. This is possible because Word creates built-in “bookmarks” for these items. You can also insert a cross-reference to any other text (or the number of the page on which that text appears) if you first insert a bookmark around or in that text using Insert | Bookmark (Insert | Links | Bookmark in Word 2007 and above). You then select Bookmark as the reference type. When you select a specific reference type, the box below will be populated with a list of the available choices. You will be asked to specify “For which heading” or “For which numbered item” or “For which bookmark,” choosing from among those listed. Each reference type offers different options for “Insert reference to.” In most cases, these include the bookmarked text itself and the number of the page on which it appears, along with the paragraph number if the paragraph is numbered. If you select each of the reference types in turn and inspect the “Insert reference to” dropdown, you will see the various options. The Cross-reference dialog also includes a check box for “Insert as hyperlink.” If you check this box, your cross-reference will be hyperlinked to the referenced item, and anyone who is reading your document electronically (as opposed to printout on paper) will be able to click (or Ctrl+click) on it and go to the referenced item. There is no reason not to choose this option since the cross-reference will not be formatted as a hyperlink (blue and underlined). Important Note: Cross-references do not update automatically. You can update them manually by selecting the entire document (Ctrl+A) and pressing F9, or they will be updated when you print or Print Preview. Important Concepts At this point it will be useful to introduce some Important Concepts about cross-references. A cross-reference is a field. Word’s Help defines field as “A set of codes that instructs Microsoft Word to insert text, graphics, page numbers, and other material into a document automatically. For example, the DATE field inserts the current date.” The field inserted by the Cross-reference dialog may be a REF field or a PAGEREF field (if “Page number” has been selected under “Insert reference to”) or a NOTEREF field (if the cross-reference is to the number of a footnote or endnote). Fields have two appearances. What you normally see in a document is the result of a field. For example, if you insert a DATE field, you see the current date. If you insert a PAGE field, you see the page number. This result, however, is achieved by a field code.You can see this field code by “toggling” the display. The easiest way to do this is to press Shift+F9 for a single field or Alt+F9 for all the fields in a document. These are the equivalent of right-clicking in a field code and choosing “Toggle Field Codes” or checking/clearing the checkbox for field codes on the View tab of Tools | Options (in Word 2007, this is Office Button | Word Options | Advanced: Show document content: Show field codes instead of their values). Fields can be modified with switches. When you view a field code, you will often see text after the name of the field. For example, in a DATE field, you might see something like \@ "MMMM d, yyyy". In many Word fields you will also see \* MERGEFORMAT. The text that follows backslashes in a field is a “switch.” Word’s Help doesn’t define a field switch, but perhaps it will help to think of it as analogous to a railroad switch, which directs a train to one track or another. The field switch tells Word something about how to present the value that results from the field. The “date-time picture” switch quoted above tells Word to present the date as, say, “September 18, 2009” instead of 9/18/09 or 18 September 2009 or any other date format (see my article on date fields for more). If you checked the box for “Insert as hyperlink” in the Cross-reference dialog, you will see the \h switch in your REF or PAGEREF or NOTEREF field code. Fields can be edited by the user. Many of the dialogs that make it easy to insert fields in Word (not just the Cross-reference dialog but also others that insert index entry fields, date fields, page numbers, and so on, as well as the Insert | Field dialog itself) often have dropdown lists or check boxes that allow you to choose certain formatting options, but sometimes the only way to achieve the effect you want is to edit the field directly by displaying the field code and typing in text manually. This includes adding switches to control the appearance of the field (for examples, see my article on TOC switches). Fields can be formatted. You can apply formatting to fields. Sometimes that formatting is wiped out when you update the field. Below I will describe some ways to ensure that fields retain the formatting you prefer. Fields can be found with Find and formatted with Replace. Some of the techniques described below rely on searching for fields using Word’s Find dialog. You can search for any field by using the code ^d or ^19 followed by a space and the field name. For this to work, however, you must have field codes displayed (use Alt+F9 to toggle the display). Formatting NOTEREF fields If you insert a cross-reference such as “see footnote 22,” you ordinarily want the number to be formatted like the surrounding text. But sometimes you use a cross-reference to a footnote or endnote number to stand in for a footnote/endnote reference mark. For example, you have inserted footnote 22, and now you want to refer to that same footnote again. The footnote reference mark is (by default) superscript, and so you want the cross-reference to be superscript as well. Fortunately, this is one of the easiest formatting tasks. When you insert the cross-reference, instead of choosing “Footnote number” or “Endnote number,” select “Footnote number (formatted)” or “Endnote number (formatted).” This will add the \f switch to the NOTEREF field. If you belatedly discover that you have omitted to make the correct choice, you can manually edit the NOTEREF field in either of two ways. You can press Alt+F9 to display the field code and manually type in the \f switch, thenAlt+F9 to toggle back (and F9 to update the field). Or you can right-click on the field, choose Edit Field, and check the box for “Insert reference mark.” Important Note: What the \f switch does (in effect) is apply the Footnote Reference or Endnote Reference style. So if you have modified the style to be, say, bold and not superscript, then your cross-reference will also be bold and not superscript; it will be formatted just the same as the footnote or endnote reference mark that is used when you insert a footnote or endnote. Change the case of a cross-reference Suppose you have inserted a cross-reference to Figure 1 or Chapter 5, but the style you are following requires your cross-reference to say “figure 1” or “chapter 5.” You can achieve this by using a format (\*) switch. Word’s Help describes these switches for capitalization formats, number formats, and character formats in the Help topic “Format (\*) field switch.” What we want here are the capitalization switches, which Help lists as follows, with a description of what each one capitalizes: \* Caps The first letter of each word. For example, { FILLIN "Type your name:" \* Caps } displays “Julie Tanner” even if the name is typed in lowercase letters. \* FirstCap The first letter of the first word. For example, { COMMENTS \* FirstCap } displays “Weekly report on sales”. \* Upper All letters. For example, { QUOTE "word" \* Upper } displays “WORD”. \* Lower None of the result; all letters are lowercase. For example, { FILENAME \* Lower } displays “weekly sales report.doc”. If the referenced information is typed in all caps, you may need to add the \* Lower switch followed by \* Caps or \* FirstCap as desired. Again, there are two ways to add one of these switches to your REF field. You can display the field code and manually type in the switch. Or you can right-click, choose Edit Field, and choose an option from the Format dropdown (where they are listed as Uppercase, Lowercase, First capital, and Title case). Change the font formatting of a cross-reference There are two format switches that can be added to fields that affect font formatting. The \* MERGEFORMAT switch is applied to field results (the text displayed by the field), and the \* Charformat switch is applied to the field itself. There are various reasons why you might want to apply direct font formatting to a REF field. For example, the Caption style by default is formatted as bold. But if you think that is ugly, you may have modified the style to be not bold, but perhaps you have applied bold formatting to just the caption number, so that you have something like this: Figure 1. This is the first caption. If you cross-reference the figure number, you will get “See Figure 1.” You can remove the bold formatting, but every time the field is updated, the bold will return. Fortunately, you can override this behavior with one of the format switches. The \* MERGEFORMAT switch (not recommended) The \* MERGEFORMAT switch is added by default to many fields that you insert in Word (unless you enter them yourself manually by pressing Ctrl+F9 and typing the field syntax). The switch is represented in some field dialogs by a check box labeled “Preserve formatting during updates.” This means that you can apply, say, bold formatting to a DATE field, and, even if the date changes, the text in the document will remain bold. As it happens, the \* MERGEFORMAT switch is not included by default in cross-references, but there are times when it might be useful, and there are times when it appears automatically. When you apply formatting to any other field, the field result displays the formatting and retains it through updates. If you apply formatting to a REF field, however, Word automatically adds a \* MERGEFORMAT switch to the field. This may or may not be what you want (if you don’t want it, note that the Undo list will include “Automatic Change,” which you can Undo). The advantage to using this switch is that it allows you to apply formatting to just a portion of the field. For example, suppose you have a heading reading “This is a heading.” In your cross-reference, you want to italicize “heading” so that it reads “This is a heading.” If you add \* MERGEFORMAT, Word will preserve this formatting through updates. The catch is that Word applies the formatting very literally. You have italicized the fourth word of the heading. If the heading changes to, say, “This is a different heading,” then your cross-reference will read “This is a differentheading.” On the other hand, suppose you have cross-referenced an entire figure caption, including the label and number along with the caption text. You want the figure label and number to be bold and the caption text italic. You can apply this formatting to the cross-reference text, add a \* MERGEFORMAT switch, and hope for the best. Provided the caption does not become longer, you will be home free. For example, if the caption is “Figure 1. This is a figure,” then your cross-reference will say, “Figure 1. This is a figure.” If the figure number changes, you’re still okay. But if you add the word different, you will get “Figure 1. This is a different figure.” To achieve the desired result unbreakably, you would need to insert two cross-references, one to “Only label and number” and one to “Only caption text” and format them individually (and for that you might as well use the \* Charformat switch. As you can see, there are good and sufficient reasons why \* MERGEFORMAT is not recommended for REF fields. Another of these is that, if a user-defined bookmark is inadvertently deleted, the REF field will display “Error! Reference source not found,” and this error message will be formatted as bold. Even if you correct the error by restoring the bookmark, the updated field will remain bold. A better solution for formatting, then, is the \* Charformat switch. The \* Charformat switch (recommended) Word’s Help describes this switch as follows: \*Charformat Applies the formatting of the first letter of the field type to the entire result. The result of the following example has bold formatting because the “R” in “REF” is bold. { REF chapter2_title \* Charformat } displays “Whales of the Pacific”. Although it suffices to format just the first letter of the field code, it works just as well to apply the desired formatting to the entire field (which is what we will later do with the Replace dialog). Since the behavior of the \* MERGEFORMAT switch is so quirky and the behavior of the \* Charformat switch so reliable (albeit limited), it is hard to see why Word seems so bent on adding the \* MERGEFORMAT switch instead. If for any reason you find that \* MERGEFORMAT is not giving the results you want, you will be well advised to try using a \* Charformat switch instead. Formatting hyperlinked cross-references We said above that hyperlinked cross-references do not display the Hyperlink character style (blue and underlined). Even if you manually apply the Hyperlink style, the cross-reference will still not be blue and underlined (Word can be very stubborn sometimes). You can, however, apply blue font color and underlining as direct font formatting and add the \* MERGEFORMAT or \* Charformat switch, and the cross-reference will remain blue and underlined even after being updated. A better approach than direct formatting, however, is to apply a character style. If you don’t know how to create a character style, see the instructions in my article on the StyleRef field. Note that this doesn’t have to be blue and underlined; you can use any formatting you choose to signal to readers that the marked words are a hyperlink. For example, one user wanted to distinguish them with a pale yellow highlight; this can be achieved with a character style that applies yellow shading to the text. The advantage to a style in this latter case is that text shading cannot be applied using Find and Replace (though you can apply a Highlight that way). Changing the formatting of multiple cross-references Now we come to the nitty-gritty of this article. Suppose you have already inserted dozens (perhaps hundreds) of cross-references that are not formatted the way you want them, and you want to change them. Fortunately, this is possible using Find and Replace. Applying formatting to all REF fields As mentioned above, fields can be found and formatted using Word’s Replace dialog. The code for an opening field brace is ^d or (if you are using wildcards) ^19. So if you search for ^19 REF, Word will find every REF field in the document. If you type that string in the “Find what” box, you can then leave the “Replace with” box empty and simply apply formatting. To do this: Press Alt+F9 to display field codes (so that Word can see REF in the fields). Press Ctrl+H to open the Replace dialog. In the “Find what” box, type ^19 REF Click More to expand the dialog. Important: Make sure the insertion point is in the "Replace with" box (even if you placed it there before clicking More, it will have reverted to the "Find what" dialog). Click Format, then Font or Style. Select the desired font formatting (such as blue and underlined) or the character style you created, and click OK. Beneath the “Replace with” box, you should see “Format: Underline, Font color: Blue” (or whatever formatting you chose) as shown in Figure 2, or “Format: Style: Your Style Name” (as shown in Figures 3 and 4). Click Replace All. Press Alt+F9 to toggle the display back to field results. Press Ctrl+A, then F9 to update fields. You should see all your cross-references with the formatting you chose. Figure 2. The Find and Replace dialog showing the correct entries to format REF fields Applying formatting only to hyperlinked cross-references The procedure above will format all cross-references. But perhaps you have some that are hyperlinked and some that are not, and you want to format only the hyperlinked ones. This is also easy to do, because the hyperlinking is indicated in the REF field by the \h switch. To format only hyperlinked REF fields, use the steps listed above with two modifications: In the “Find what” box, use this string: REF * \\h Check the box for “Use wildcards.” The wildcard * stands for “0 or More Characters,” so this string will find a REF field with any amount of text between the REF identifier and the \h switch. If you find that Word is selecting more text than a single field, you may want to use Find Next instead of Replace All so that you can verify the placement before clicking Replace. Important Note: The extra backslash is necessary to “escape” the backslash before h, telling Word to read it literally and not as a wildcard character. Applying formatting and adding a format switch As you’ve seen, applying formatting is pretty easy. But if you want to apply the formatting and preserve it from updates, you will want to insert the \* Charformat switch as part of your Replace operation. This, too, can be done. It is relatively simple for hyperlinked REF fields and only a little more complex for ones that are not hyperlinked. The instructions below will use the same steps outlined above, with just a few changes. You will need the following advance preparation: As before, make sure that field codes are displayed (press Alt+F9). Both Replace operations require wildcards, so make sure you have the “Use wildcards” box checked. Very Important: Because the \* Charformat switch contains reserved characters that can’t be used in the “Replace with” box, you will be inserting it from the Clipboard (using the code ^c), so before you begin the Replace operation, you need to type \* Charformat into your document (or anywhere), select it, and copy it to the Clipboard. For hyperlinked REF fields See Figure 3 for illustration. In the “Find what” box, type REF * \\h In the “Replace with” box, type ^& ^c Use the Format button to add the desired formatting to the “Replace with” box as described above. Click Replace All. Your cross-references should be formatted, with a \* Charformat switch added. Figure 3. Find and Replace dialog showing the correct entries to find hyperlinked REF fields, add a \* Charformat switch, and apply formatting Warning! If your document contains the word “REF” (as this article does), this Replace operation will find much more than just REF fields. When I tested this Replace on this article (having inserted some cross-reference fields at the end for testing purposes), I got very startling results! And be sure to include the space after the word REF so that Word doesn’t find words beginning with those letters. Important Note: If you find that the search is including more than just a single REF field, you may wish to use Find Next instead of Replace All so that you can verify each insertion before making it. For non-hyperlinked REF fields See Figure 4 for illustration. Note that this will find all REF fields, both hyperlinked and non-hyperlinked (with the exclusions noted below). In the “Find what” box, type REF _Ref[0-9]{1,9} Important Note: If the list separator is not a comma but a semicolon, then {1,9} must be {1;9}. In the “Replace with” box, type ^& ^c Use the Format button to add the desired formatting to the “Replace with” box as described above. Click Replace All. Your cross-references should be formatted, with a \* Charformat switch added. Figure 4. Find and Replace dialog showing correct entries to find non-hyperlinked REF fields, insert a \* Charformat switch, and apply formatting Important Note: This Replace operation will work only for cross-references to the hidden bookmarks that Word creates for headings, numbered items, footnotes, endnotes, and captions. It will not work for cross-references to user-created bookmarks. More Information: The string REF _Ref[0-9]{1,9} tells Word to look for a series of up to nine digits following _Ref, which is the format for the bookmarks Word creates. As far as I have been able to determine, they all actually have either eight or nine digits; it has been speculated that the ones with eight have an initial zero suppressed. This article copyright © 2009, 2011, 2014 by Suzanne S. Barnhill. I am indebted to Word MVPs Lene Fredborg, Jay Freedman, Graham Mayor, and Tony Jollans, who contributed helpful suggestions.

Ref: http://storageswiss.com/2014/08/26/pick-the-next-storage-networking-protocol/

Picking The Next Storage Networking Protocol

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Charlie Hodges

The data center is under immense pressure to scale the infrastructure to support more virtual machines, more users per database and to deal with the capacity growth caused by big data. As they refresh their storage systems to address these demands they also need to consider which storage networking protocol and topology they should use. The problem is that selecting the right protocol and topology can be daunting and the consequences of making a wrong selection could be irreparable. In this video we are joined by CISCO to walk customers through that selection process.

As we discuss in the video there are three basic options available today in storage infrastructures. First are the classic storage networking technologies available today that are based on fibre channel or Ethernet. These are commonly used for legacy applications like databases and virtual environments.

Then there are the newer fabric-based Ethernet networks which allow the move to more converged architectures. The goal of these architectures is to reduce costs by reducing the number of HBAs and switches that need to be bought. These architectures are very popular in big data and the cloud but are working their way into legacy architectures as well.

There will be a time of transition for almost any data center. During this transition there will very likely be a mixture of fibre channel, legacy Ethernet and Ethernet fabric employed. It is important to leverage solutions that allow you to make that transition at the pace you and the organization are comfortable with. For some data centers that may be a very slow transition for others it may be very rapid.

As we discuss in the video the key design goal for an IT planner should be to not get locked into one particular protocol or another. Flexibility is vital to long term success. You want to make sure that you decide on an infrastructure that will allow you to change direction if you need to in the future.

Which DPI to choose when scanning your photos?

Ref: http://scanyourentirelife.com/dpi-should-be-scanning-your-paper-photographs/

The DPI You Should Be Scanning Your Paper Photographs

One of the most important decisions you face when scanning anything with your scanner is choosing what dpi (“dots per inch”) to scan with. And specifically for this post, what is the best dpi to use when scanning and archiving your 8×10″ and smaller paper photographic prints – which for most people, make up the majority of our pre-digital collection.

Making this decision was very challenging for me and certainly a huge part of my 8 year delay. The reason for this is that dpi is the critical variable in a fairly simple mathematical equation that will determine several important outcomes for your digital images:

• Detail – how much image detail you will extract from your photograph
• Image Size – how much resolution in pixels you will have to work with (e.g. 2400 x 3000 pixels)
• File Size – how large the file size will become (e.g. 64.9 MB or 64,878,462 bytes)

It’s definitely a decision you want to make before you complete your very first scan. Trust me, you don’t want to get halfway through your collection and realize you could have been extracting more image detail from your prints if you had just chosen a slightly higher dpi to begin with.

If you study the routine of a professional photo restorer, you will learn they tend to see each photograph as a separate challenge – like a doctor attending to an ailing patient for the first time. It’s a laborious investigative process for them. They may even scan each print several times with varying dpi’s, carefully comparing each image until they find the most appropriate dpi for the photo’s personalized workflow.

Because you probably have anywhere from hundreds to a few thousand photos on average in your family’s collection, it’s not practical or even reasonable for me to suggest we would want to attempt such perfectionism. So instead what I decided to do was focus my effort on finding a single dpi setting we could scan with for each print dimension in our collections – like a 3×3″, 4×6″ or a 5×7″ picture. This way, not only is it one less decision you will have to make when you’re sitting in front of a large stack of photographs to scan, but it will also create a pleasant consistency across your entire digital collection.

I know, so far this all sounds great doesn’t it?

Well the trouble with trying to settle on just one dpi setting per dimension is that it’s going to be used to produce (in most cases) just one “master” digital file that we will be archiving. So this one dpi is burdened with producing a satisfactory result for each of the three important outcomes I listed above.

To make it easier for us to wrap our heads around this problem, I have summarized all of my concerns into this one question:

What dpi should we scan our paper photographs with that will capture as much detail stored in them as we possibly can, will create a manageable file size, but will also produce enough image resolution should we choose to do some radical cropping or print out an average-sized enlargement from them someday?

Before we go any further, I feel it necessary to mention the term “dpi” really is incorrect when we’re talking about scanning images. Because of laziness in the industry, we have been saddled with this acronym carried over from “halftone dots per inch” used by press reproduction with screened plates used for magazines and newspapers.

Instead, what we are dealing with are actually pixels and not dots. It’s really referred to as ppi or “pixels per inch.” The resolution of an image on your computer monitor is measured by the amount of pixels tall and pixels wide they are composed of (e.g. 2162 × 2194 pixels). However, to avoid any unneeded confusion here and because we are talking about the setting in your scanner software that almost always refers to ppi as dpi, I will use dpi instead. Just understand that as far as the setting on your scanner, they mean the same thing and can be used interchangeably.

Alright then. Now that we have that taken care of, let’s figure this out.

Choosing DPI Based on Time Required

One of the biggest mistakes I find people make when choosing the dpi is allowing the length of time it takes to complete the scan influence their decision. Those new to scanning may be surprised to learn that the higher the dpi, the longer it takes for the scanner to make its capturing pass and for the computer the process the information. I’ve recorded for you the time it takes my current scanner, the Epson Perfection v600, to complete scans with various dpi’s.

Scanning Times for a 3.5×3.5″ Print on an Epson Perfection V600
DPI	150	300	400	600	800	1200	2400	3200	4800
Time Elapsed (mins:sec)	:11	:12	:14	:18	:31	1:02	2:34	3:53	6:37

You can see there is in fact a vast difference in the amount of time required to scan at one of its lowest settings (150 dpi) and scanning with one of its highest (4800 dpi). But more importantly, I want you to notice the time it takes to scan at 300 dpi through 800 dpi is almost the same length of time. On this model, we are only talking about a difference of 19 seconds. And specifically between 300 and 600 dpi, it’s only a measly 6 seconds.

All scanners scan at different speeds so your scanner may or may not be slower than this model. But if it is, chances are the percentage of time between each of the dpi settings will be very similar. Regardless, if you think you are going to be one of the ones waiting impatiently for your scanner to work its magic on a higher dpi, I would like you to remember this. Scanning and archiving your family’s photo collection is an investment. It’s going to be an investment of your time and energy, and for that reason, you probably will only want to do this one time.

I believe it’s worth a few extra moments – as agonizing as you may find them to be – to insure your image quality isn’t being compromised by rushing the process. Open wounds need time to heal, baking dough needs time to rise, and photo scanners need time to scan. Got it?

To fill the extra time, consider taking an extra long sip of your nonfat mocha latte, play solitaire, watch some television, or better yet – lightly dust off your next photo to be scanned with a lint free cloth.

So what happens when you scan with the dpi set too low?

Paper prints were never intended to replace the original slides and negatives they were made from – they simply can’t hold that much detail. Instead they were only made so it would be easy to share them. We could print them out, stick them in a fun colorful album and bring them around town to show our family and friends.

If you are fortunate to have the original film negatives or slides, you definitely want to use them instead of your prints to create the highest quality digital images possible.

Sadly, many of us have accidentally misplaced our negatives or threw them in the trash throughout the years and are only left with these fair to moderate paper representations. But don’t get me wrong – we are lucky to have these. Just talk for a few minutes with someone who lost their entire collection to a house fire and you will want to cut them off mid-story and rush home to your shoebox of Polaroids and give them a big ol’ hug! I’m not kidding. Really hug them. Hug them now.

Paper prints can only hold up to 200 or 300 dpi worth of image detail. If you’re really blessed, you might have some prints with detail up to 600 dpi.

It’s really difficult to look at a photographic print and know how many “dots per inch” of detail it holds. Professionals that have been doing this for many years can probably tell based on a lot of criteria such as the year it was printed, the type of film negative it was exposed with, the type of paper it was printed on etc. But for the rest of us, I think it’s fair to say we can only estimate after some trial and error.

If you’re really motivated, take one of your prints and scan it at different resolutions such as 100, 300, 600 and 1200 dpi. Then put each one of your images on your computer monitor (zooming in when necessary) and compare the level of detail. Try and determine at which ppi setting you no longer are getting more picture detail from the setting below it. This dpi setting is then the one you may want to use for this photo because it gives you all the detail at a smaller filesize than that of a higher dpi setting.

So if you scan with too low of a dpi – for example 75, 100 or 150 dpi – you run an incredible risk of not capturing all of the detail that your paper prints are holding.

In order for us to settle on one dpi setting per photo dimension, we will need to choose one that, in many cases, will be too “high” – attempting to capture more detail than is realistically there – just to insure that we are able to capture the detail when it is available in a given print.

So can you scan with too high of a DPI?

When you buy a dedicated photo scanner, or even an all-in-one printer/scanner, you are led to believe from the specifications on the box it came in there is some real value in scanning with these extremely high dpi scanner settings.

I mean if the scanner is rated for “6400 x 9600 dpi” and that’s why I paid so much for this new fancy model, why not just go for it and set it to that 9600 dpi?

That’s a fair question to ask, especially considering all my talk about making sure that when you scan a photograph, you understand this may be the last you will ever get to scan it.

In most cases, you won’t do any harm scanning at unnecessarily high resolutions. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking the higher up you go, the more detail you will extract – because it probably isn’t there to begin with. If you had this much detail, it would be in your original film negative or slide – not in the print.

Also keep in mind the higher up you go, the exponentially greater amount of hard drive space you will need to save the file and the faster computer you will need to process this information in a photo manager. For example, the 3.5 x 3.5″ print at 4800 dpi (48-bit) I did for the chart above took up a massive 2.22 GB (2,216,808,780 bytes) of disk space. Those interested in archiving their masters on today’s single-sided recordable DVD’s will be unhappy to learn you will only get 2 of these to fit on a single-sided (4.7gb) recordable dvd.

I would agree that a 2.22 gigabyte image is rather large and way too excessive to be the average file size for your collection. But you really shouldn’t concern yourself if you start to see file sizes between 40 megabytes and 200 megabytes – especially when you choose to work with file size intense 48-bit uncompressed (TIFF) settings. And on occasion they could even be larger than that for your special photos.

We are finally past the time when hard drive space and processing power is in short supply for digital images. Except for some of the ultra-portable computers, an average personal computer bought today is more than competent at handling 100MB images, and enormous multi-terabyte (thousands of gigabytes) hard drives can be found under $100 if you shop around.

Keep in mind the ultimate goal for these scans are for their archival purposes, and will find their greatest reward years and years from now when computing power and storage space won’t even be a consideration anymore.

Optical Resolutions vs. Digital

The really high resolutions however – 2400, 3200 and 4800 dpi – are really intended for capturing really small and highly detailed sources like film negatives and slides.

If you want to experiment with these resolutions, just make sure you stay away from the “digital” ones. On the box your scanner or printer/scanner combo came in, you will see a rating with two numbers. The Epson Perfection v600 for example is rated for 6400 x 9600 dpi of resolution. The first number is the highest “optical” resolution your scanner is capable of, and therefore the highest dpi you should ever scan with. The second number, is often the highest resolution it’s capable of scanning digitally – faking the results by interpolating the data. Thankfully, some scanning software now won’t even let you select the digital dpi’s from the list.

In the case of the Epson Perfection v600, the maximum “digital” resolution is actually 12,800 dpi, much higher than the second number given. So you may need to consult your specifications printed on the box or find it in the printed or .pdf manual if you are curious about your scanner’s digital capabilities.

The Advantage of Having All This Archived Image Resolution

In the end, there won’t be any benefit to having our entire collection in a digital format if we aren’t able to make paper prints from them like we can with our film negatives. Just like we need a certain amount of “dpi” to capture images into the computer, we need a certain amount to print them back out to paper. The larger the piece of paper you want to print on, the more image resolution you are going to need in your digital files.

Printers today need on average between 200 and 300 ppi (dpi) of image resolution information to print a high quality image on high quality paper. And I am going to make the assumption that most of us seldom print out a photograph larger than 8×10 inches. Which is good, because almost all of the printers out there won’t even print larger than 8×10 inches!

I know you probably hate math as much as the next person, so don’t worry – I’ll do it for you. What this means is that in order to print out a photo on an 8×10″ piece of paper, we need up to a 2400 x 3000 ppi (dpi) image. Here’s my work:

(8 inches  x  300 ppi)  x  (10 inches  x  300 ppi)  =  2400 x 3000 pixels per inch

Given a choice, without a doubt in my mind, it’s better to scan too high than to scan too low.

And if you don’t want to take just my word for it (grin), when I started learning all about scanning years ago, I found great comfort in this quote from Wayne Fulton of scantips.com and kept going back to it:

It is true that if the image might be resized after the scan, it’s always much better quality to resize to reduce the image size rather than to resize to increase the image size. If you aren’t sure what your future intentions for the image might be, and won’t be able to scan it again, then it’s probably best to err on the large side (if storage space allows, up to reasonable amounts anyway). Resizing to be smaller discards excess pixels. But resizing to be larger must create (or fake) new interpolated pixels which were not in the original scan. There is no additional detail possible in interpolated pixels, even if the image is larger. The results are not at all the same as scanning at the higher resolution.

Okay so really, what DPI is the best for each print dimension?

We are finally to the point where I can tell you what dpi I use on average for each print dimension. It was just a matter of crunching the numbers to insure each sized print receives a high enough dpi to not only capture all of the detail possible but will also have enough image resolution to safely print out an 8×10″ photograph from it.

So here’s what you have been waiting for. Here are the dpi settings I came up with to fulfill all of my concerns yet still produces file sizes that are manageable on today’s hardware.

DPI Scanner Settings for Archiving Paper Prints
Print Dimensions	2.5×3.5″	3.5×3.5″	4×4.5″	3.5×5″	4×5″	4×6″	4×7″	5×7″	8×10″
DPI Setting	1000	900	600	600	600	600	600	600	600

Again, these dpi’s are formulated to be used across the board for lots and lots of prints. You might decide certain prints in your collection are way too soft and lack the detail to warrant the suggested dpi so if you want to scan these few at 300 dpi for instance, be my guest. And for example, you may find some black and white prints seem to have a tremendous amount of detail, so you may decide it’s worth scanning them at 1200 dpi. Or maybe there are a few prints here and there you know you will want to make really big enlargements of someday – your prized few. Whatever reason, just use the above settings as the default.

And a little note here – the pulldown menu in your scanning software where you choose the dpi may not have every conceivable value to choose from – in this case 900 or 1000 dpi. But chances are you can choose another dpi such as 800, hit the delete key to clear that amount and then type in the value you wish. If this doesn’t work, you may have to choose the preset value below or above my suggestion. Of course you know now to choose higher dpi right?

Be content in knowing that what these default settings have done for you is create a digital collection with consistent image dimensions throughout that will be extremely beneficial to you as you begin to work and print with them in your image managers. You won’t have to worry whether you have enough detail and resolution for future tasks because you have already planned ahead for them.

What dpi do you use to scan your paper prints with? Has this made you change your mind one way or the other?