>Hi, Hilmar.
>
>>I am scanning lots of documents for a client, and somebody suggested to use JPEG 2000 format, instead of JPEG. Now, I understand that these typically take up less space for the same quality; but how about compatibility? For instance, some of these images are destined for distribution on a CD, and they should work in the major browsers. Also, to give another example, some pictures might end up being imported into PowerPoint presentations.
>
>If you're scanning black and white documents, or at least documents with just a few colors, then avoid JPEG or other lossless compression format altogether, and go for something crispier like GIF or PNG. GIF in particular is widely supported.

Thanks. I am aware of these alternatives; I have used PNG in the past. BTW, note that JPG, usually, is lossy, not lossless.

>In general, scanned documents use to be stored in TIFF format, which has a set of special features that many document management sofware use, like multipage files. However, if you plan to set the collection for use with a browser (as your message suggests), then GIF could be better. Also notice that Irfan can be used as a document viewer on a CD, with several options as thumbnails, slide-show, etc.

Instead of distributing IrfanView, I have used it to create HTML slideshows. That works well.