Blackout Highlighting Ink

[Arkanabar]

I have need for a highlighting color that will scan completely black (HIPAA privacy regulation compliance). Our compliance officer is fine with me actually blacking out the specific Protected Health Information. I would rather have it remain legible in our record, to ease in filing, while being completely blacked out/ illegible to fax recipients. We use a big Ricoh multifunction document system, if that matters, and it has a fairly typical blue-white scanner bar. I think it probably would not scan non-photo blue.

So, what would y'all recommend?

[amberleadavis]

Hmm..... are we talking scans or copies?

 

And is it acceptable if it just makes the area unreadable by scanner / copier? If so, then I had some strange ink around here it was sort of a silver(ish) color and when I scan it, it was like white out, but when you see it, it's perfectly legible. I just recall what it is. I'd have to look.

[Tweel]

How about highlighting in one color, and then slipping the document into a transparent plastic report cover of the opposite color before copying? E.g. green highlighter and red report cover.

[amberleadavis]

Nifty idea.

[SeeksAdvice]

RE: highlighter + colored cover. I'm guessing he's looking at a fairly high volume operation.

 

Our office tends to use black sharpies. Been trying to get them to change to something not solvent based.

Experimented with Borealis Black in a Preppy HL pen. It doesn't come out as black as you'd expect. Office went back to sharpies anyway, as they were used to them.

 

Perhaps a dark blue?

 

All you really need is something that convinces the copier the area is all "black," or all "white." It doesn't actually have to say *be* black.

[Arkanabar]

I don't want it to actually be black. I just want it to look black to our Ricoh document management system (copier, scanner, fax, printer, etc, etc, etc.) while leaving the print visible to the naked eye, in order to reduce the probability of incidental disclosures, while not increasing the difficulty of filing any of originals that get loose. A black chisel-point solvent-based marker will serve (barely -- the toner reflects just a little bit differently from the ink, to the naked eye), but I was hoping some of you had a better idea that wouldn't require me to look really closely. Thus far, kitchen sink blue and Visconti Sepia do not look black to our Ricoh. Maybe if I had a decent red. But the darned thing is actually a color scanner, and may always be able to tell color from black.

 

And given the volume of release of information, I don't have time to use a colored report cover. Furthermore, there are scanner codes on these sheets which must remain computer readable.

[amberleadavis]

There is a thread somewhere around here about what inks would not scan on the bank scanner. I'd suggest starting there.

[Arkanabar]

I just looked over SeeksAdvice's post again. I have Borealis Black, and a 3.8mm Parallel. After I run its cartridge empty (which shouldn't take long), I may refill it with Borealis and/or Waterman Black, to see how that works.

[fwyun]

If you're ok with a DIY solution . . . take a standard "yellow" hilighting ink. Hit it with another color (red, green, blue, etc) that will darken it a bit. Load it into a Platinum Preppy or other highlighter of your choice.

 

You will need to experiment with the ratio of the two colors to control the "darkness" of the scan - work in small quantities at first.

 

Francis

 

eta: I haven't actually done this before. It's more of a suggestion. I have seen highlighting inks (that I have doctored) appear darker on scans

Edited September 13, 2014 by fwyun

[martinbir]

May not help you, but silver reflects and shows as black in a copier/scanner.

[Mezzie]

Hmmm... I think my green highlighter ink was a problem when I photocopied a while back. I can't remember if it was completely black in the copy or not, though. I also use a 3.8 Parallel and a Ricoh, so I'll get back to you after I have a chance to experiment.

[Agge]

Wouldn't a dark blue or any other dark work if you set the brightness(/contrast?) on the scanner to be significantly less?

 

I imagine that you should be able to set the scanner to interpret any color as black even a regular light yellow/green highlighter.