When you’re planning to buy a new filing cabinet, it’s essential to know what’s available on the market. Not all filing cabinets are made equal, and the different types all have specific uses, advantages and disadvantages. It really depends on the intended function of your filing cabinet as to what kind of cabinet you should buy. This article provides an overview of the range of filing cabinets commonly available, allowing you to choose based on function and what will suit your needs best.
1. The Lateral Filing Cabinet
A lateral filing cabinet is also known as a horizontal filing cabinet due to its wide drawers. Rather than being tall, these filing cabinets hug the ground with their horizontal shape. This fact makes them a lot safer to use, as there’s less chance of them tipping due to heavy drawers. The balance of weight in these filing cabinets is quite different to the old fashioned vertical filing cabinet. Horizontal filing cabinets also hide their function more easily, as they tend to look like a normal piece of furniture. The larger drawers can also store papers larger than A4, so they’re worth considering if you need that functionality.
2. The Vertical Filing Cabinet
The vertical filing cabinet is an office classic for a reason. No other filing cabinet offers as much storage room for as little floor space taken up. If you’re looking for a compact storage solution for A4 papers, the vertical filing cabinet might suffice. You can commonly find it in a range of finishes including wood, metal, laminate and wood veneer. One of the main advantages of vertical filing cabinets is they present your files front-on to your vision, allowing you to see the labels on your files very easily as you flip through them.
3. The Mobile Filing Cabinet
What’s even more convenient than the humble filing cabinet is a filing cabinet on wheels! Mobile filing cabinets can fit underneath desks or be wheeled around the office when you need your files handy. Their castors set them apart from other more stationary cabinets like the vertical filing cabinet and the lateral filing cabinet. Mobile filing cabinets are best used for documents that are frequently referred to, documents relating to a specific current project, or for documents that many people in the office may need access to.
4. Specialty Storage Cabinets
If you need to store drawings, art, architectural blueprints or anything else on a large scale, then you will need a flat file storage cabinet. Their wide, shallow drawers are perfect for storing larger documents. On the other hand, side tab filing systems are uniquely suited to medical facilities, as they’re constructed to safely hold a great number of documents. There are also solutions available for card file storage, which is ideal for libraries and other institutions that use index cards for their processes. Card file storage cabinets come in a range of sizes to suit different needs.
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