Microfilm – 16mm Microfiche – 35mm Microfiche – 16mm Rollfilm – 35mm Rollfilm – Aperture Cards
Microfilm Scanning Service
35mm Aperture Card Scanning.
16mm Microfiche Scanning.
- 35mm Microfiche Scanning.
- Combination Fiche Scanning.
- 16mm Rollfilm Scanning.
- 35mm Rollfilm Scanning.
- Bulk Conversions.
- Small Scan-on-Demand Microfilm Scanning.
- Same Day Microfilm Scanning.
Indexing and Cataloguing.
- Convery Microfilm Greyscale Images to PDF, TIFF, JPG.
- OCR Text Searchable PDF Files.
- OCR Handwriting Searchable PDF Files.
Data Protection and GDPR Compliant (reg Z2002164)
Types of Microfilm
How We
Do It
full service
Microfiche Scanning Services
Professional Microfilm Scanning Services | UK Wide
Is your organisation’s vital historical data locked away on legacy microfilm? Scanning and Data Solutions Limited provides professional, secure microfilm scanning services that convert physical micro-forms into high-resolution, easily accessible digital assets.
Legacy microfilm, microfiche jackets, and aperture cards naturally degrade over time. Furthermore, vintage microform reader printers are becoming rare, obsolete, and difficult to maintain. By modernising your archives with our specialist microfilm digitisation bureau, your team can instantly share information, embrace secure hybrid working, and easily comply with modern data regulations.
Every Microfilm Format Discovered & Digitised
With over 30 years of direct industry experience, we understand exactly how legacy microfilm was originally created. This technical expertise allows us to capture the sharpest possible imagery from every type of media:
16mm & 35mm Roll Film: We scan standard open reels and cartridges. A single 16mm roll typically contains around 2,500 document frames, while a 35mm reel holds roughly 550 large-format frames—such as newspapers or engineering schematics.
Microfiche & Jackets: Whether you have standard jacket fiche, COM fiche (Computer Output Microfilm), or legacy documents issued by Companies House, we can digitise them seamlessly.
Aperture Cards: We convert cardboard-mounted 35mm frames of architectural blueprints and industrial engineering drawings into crisp, scalable digital formats.
Master Silver vs. Diazo Copies: We adapt our scanner sensors to handle pristine Master Silvers or working Diazo copies, using advanced image enhancement to fix low contrast, fading, and yellowing.
Advanced Image Enhancement & Greyscale Output
Most microfilm archives suffer from poor original photography or physical degradation. To counter this, our industrial microfilm scanners capture true high-quality Greyscale images.
By processing files in greyscale rather than flat black-and-white (binary), our software preserves fine details, adjusts contrast, and rescues faded text that would otherwise be completely unreadable.
Intelligent Indexing & OCR Searchable PDF
We don’t just provide flat pictures of your film. We turn your legacy archives into functional databases:
Title Strip & Data Extraction: We extract existing cataloguing information directly from the microfiche title strip (such as an Employee Name for HR or a Planning Application Reference for Local Authorities) and use it to automatically index your new digital filenames.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Every frame is processed through advanced OCR engines to create fully text-searchable PDF files. This lets you search entire volumes instantaneously by keywords, phrases, or dates. Even handwritten images can run through the OCR with good results.
Flexible Data Delivery: Your digitised records can be exported alongside structured data files (such as
.CSV, MS Excel, or MS Access) for direct integration into your existing document management systems, Microsoft Teams, or SharePoint.
On-Site or Off-Site Scanning: Ultimate Compliance
We appreciate that your microfilm archive may contain highly sensitive, confidential, or legally critical business data. To guarantee a workflow that matches your strict security protocols, we offer flexible operational setups:
Secure Off-Site Bureau Scanning
Send your microforms directly to our secure facility. We are fully registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO Data Protection Registered Reg: Z2002164), strictly GDPR compliant, and sign comprehensive confidentiality agreements before any project begins. Finished digital data is returned on encrypted external media or uploaded via secure Cloud channels using AES256 encryption.
Specialist On-Site Microfilm Scanning
If your records are too sensitive to ever leave your premises, we can sometimes bring the bureau to you. We supply our own industrial microfilm scanners, technicians, and processing hardware directly to your site. To ensure maximum internal security, we can remove and hand over all system hard drives directly to your management team upon project completion, ensuring zero data footprint leaves your building.
Ready to Digitise Your Microfilm Archive?
Whether you have a single archive box of mixed microfiche or an entire basement repository of 35mm drawing reels, Scanning and Data Solutions Limited will deliver an accurate, fast, and competitively priced solution.
We appreciate that some Microfilm is very sensitive, because of this we offer off-site microfilm scanning services at our premises and on-site microfilm scanning services at your premises. So we will bring scanners, people, expertise and all the hardware to you. In highly secure scanning environments, upon completion of the scanning project, we can remove all hard drives from our systems and hand them over to you, so no data needs to leave site.
We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office for Data Protection and GDPR Compliant (reg Z2002164) and have signed the Data Protection Promise, we also have confidentiality agreements already drawn up by our lawyers for both parties to sign. Disks containing the scanned microfilm images are encrypted to AES256 standards.
Scanning Microfilm on-site and off-site can be in accordance with BS10008.
Microfilm is typically scanned at between 200dpi and 300dpi. This is the resolution relative to the original document, the Microfilm is scanned at many thousand dpi.
We can create hundreds of different file formats for scanned images. However the most typical are PDF and TIFF. JPEG is a popular format but is only a single page format so it does not lend itself that well to Microfiche scanning. PDF is now a recognised standard, the following formats are becoming the norm for document scanning projects and document archiving projects:
PDF/A-1b Compact ISO19005-1 Level B
PDF/A-1b Raster ISO 19005-1 Level B
Once the scanning of your Microfilm is complete, they usually need to be indexed. The exact microfilm scanning indexing requirements will depend on your requirements.
Microfiche will have a Description on the Title strip, this is what is usually used as the index for the scanned image, this maybe an Employee name in a HR department, or a Planning Application Reference in a Planning Department.
This index can be used as the filename: for example;
Smith, David_12345.pdf in a HR Department, Or
1998-1234 FP.pdf in a Planning Department.
Some clients may already have a Document Management System or database that they wish to get the data into or linked to. We can also provide scan data and index data in numerous formats, for example;
Comma Separated (.CSV), MS Excel, Ms Access, Text
Scans and index information can be returned on USB, DVD or loaded to our Cloud Services. Media containing the microfilm scans are encrypted to AES256 standards.
In instances when software is required to store and look after your scanning and indexing, we have a number of options. File Store is an entry level Document Retrieval System, designed for TIFF and PDF files. The system is based on a MS Access backend database. File Store enables users to search on a number of data fields and quickly display the scanned TIFF or PDF. The PDF or TIFF can then be emailed, printed, exported etc.