In contrast to the casual attitude of some court reporters, Kentuckiana Reporters, LLC takes the issue of archiving very seriously. The company maintains archives in an online repository, makes backups on the company’s server network, writes and saves everything to CD, and prints out hard copies. It sounds like overkill, but these are legal documents, and the records of the court have sometimes been treated as less important than they should have been. You have the security of knowing that you’ve entrusted your documents to someone that’s accepted the responsibility. In that case, Web-based archiving is preferable.

   One of the key advantages of online archiving is that it is media independent. That is, the archive is not dependent on any particular software or hardware for accessibility. No matter what kind of computer you have and no matter what kind of removable media, you can download it to your computer and process the work. The need to keep archives accessible to users for decades underscores the importance of this consideration.

   Kentuckiana Reporters, LLC believes that archiving online offers tremendous advantages for the court reporter. The idea of being able to access archived files anywhere, anytime. That’s power. They enable clients to retrieve transcripts outside of normal business hour. If it’s Saturday night and clients are preparing for a trial that starts on Monday, you can go to Kentuckian's Web site and download what you need.

   Kentuckiana archives files in PDF format. PDF (portable document format) files are emerging as a popular and attractive alternative for storing documents. PDF documents, which are the product of a proprietary software application, have several advantages over documents produced using nonproprietary software formats.

   In addition, PDF files can be read by anyone who has a PDF reader, which is free and downloadable online. This easy access has obviously contributed to the popularity of PDFs. PDFs combine the ease of nonproprietary formats with the strengths of proprietary software: they can easily be sent and opened and yet are TOTALLY secure.