The paperless office was due to arrive 10 years ago, and file cabinets seemed to be on the way out.

Electronic file storage was the future.

Some businesses planned to reallocate space the cabinets occupied.

Today, file cabinets are as much a presence as ever. And the domination of electronic filing is still the future.

The paperless office is more like papier-mache, its electronic innards printing a fresh outer shell each day.

The shell's glue is a blend of self-protection, a distrust of one's own computer skills, and machines' ability to crash and wipe out a pile of information. The potential for litigation hardens the perception that paper backup is essential. Especially in small and medium-size businesses, filing means hard copies in hard cabinets, said Doug Hyre, president of Harris Office Furniture in Roanoke.

Sales of filing cabinets have increased slightly each year since 2000, according to data from BIFMA International, a trade association that says it represents most of the country's office furniture sellers.

"Fifteen years ago, management was looking at business plans and processes and asking 'Should I plan to ramp down file production capability?' " said Tom Reardon of BIFMA in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The impact of that dream was supposed to be dramatic: office cubicles would be roomier, office buildings needn't be quite so hulking and the dreaded relocation of one's business would hold less fear -- not to mention overflowing cardboard boxes. It would be fibrous-free utopia for white collardom. The workplace would be quieter, even safer, when the notorious slam of steel doors disappeared into history along with the paper cut.

"But now, 15 years down the road, we look at the numbers and just because we have the capability to do that, it still hasn't come about," Reardon said.

Statistics on the association's Web site show that in 2004, purchases of file cabinets were climbing back almost to their early '90s share of the $10-billion office furniture budget. Also, furniture used for storing all types of media and materials has risen steadily, the statistics show.

It's a trend managers may not like.

Steelcase, a leading manufacturer of office furniture, says on its Web site that "It actually costs companies more to own furniture than it does to buy it. Statistics show that for every dollar spent on a furniture purchase, companies pay out an additional two dollars to manage it over its life cycle."

Still, cabinets may be cheaper than electronic file storage, for several reasons.

Hyre, at Harris Office Furniture, said cabinet sales seem to be holding steady. A few years ago, he said, "We thought there would be a substantial decline.

"I'm not sure we ever will get to a true paperless office," Hyre said, "and I think as long as there are documents that have to be stored for however long that, while some companies have the ability to afford the technology to scan and file electronically, most small and medium companies are still storing hard copies."

A paperless office

The reluctance to give up paper amazes Steve Moskowitz, director of ConocoPhillips' Houston headquarters and a speaker on the advantages of e-mail and electronic data storage.

"I see people, the first thing they do is open the e-mail, print a copy and go to the printer, and sit down with coffee and read e-mails. I find it hard to believe. It's so much easier to respond" by skipping the paper in ConocoPhillips, the nation's third-largest energy company, Moskowitz said.

"I feel we are on a journey to paperless," Moskowitz said, and it will take a new generation of workers to fully shift the paradigm.

Moskowitz, 53, envisions a future office with multiple computer screens in the spaces now occupied by file cabinets.

The peripheral screens would show information from various archives and sources, while the center screen gathers data for the user's project, said Moskowitz, who had 12 windows open on his computer during the phone interview.

Today's electronic filing systems possess the capabilities to deploy the system Moskowitz described.

But in reality, electronic systems are still being refined. Technical problems are one reason, as new software fails to recognize old files, particularly spreadsheets and databases. Think Windows 95, superseded by Windows 98, followed by Windows 2000, and then by Windows XP.

A paperless office is almost possible, says Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon. He's one of Congress' leading technology advocates, and 10 years ago declared publicly that his office would operate without paper whenever possible.

"We are almost there," Boucher said recently.

"I dare say in terms of new paper generated, we have reduced the amount that goes through the office 90 percent compared to 10 years ago."

That's closer to paperless than most congressional offices, Boucher said.

His office still uses paper for letters to constituents who don't use e-mail, Boucher said.

Otherwise, all new letters and documents are generated, edited, sent and stored electronically. Even 10-year-old electronic files aren't a problem, because new versions of word processing software can read the older documents, said Kim Willis, who handles information technology for Boucher.

Files from about 1983 to 1995 are stored on paper, Boucher said, but "we visit those files so rarely" that the expense of scanning them into electronic storage can't be justified.

"I don't think we've bought any new file cabinets in the last decade," Boucher said.

BIFMA recently updated its policy for retaining its own files, Reardon said.

"We find that if you keep an electronic file, newer versions of software come along.

"You get a few revisions down the road, and you aren't able to read documents created under older versions of software, so you almost have to keep a hard copy, because subsequent versions can't read them," Reardon said.

Integrated Imaging

Integrated Imaging of Roanoke was an early entry to the document-archiving field. The company began in 1998 as a way to post construction blueprints on a secure Web site, and evolved into an archiving venture a couple of years later when the law offices of Woods Rogers decided to go the digital route for saving its older files.

The job required that Integrated Imaging employees scan the Woods Rogers files manually into the electronic system, page by page and folder by folder.

Clay Gibney, information technology director for Woods Rogers, said the results have been "a mixed bag for us."

The change to electronic files freed up a large amount of office space, but "the scanning process itself was not 100 percent perfect," Gibney said.

It was not a disaster, either, Gibney said. "Those were extremely ancient documents, from the 1980s and early '90s. The vast majority were targeted for destruction, but we wanted to scan them first for safety's sake," Gibney said.

Still, "We have had a few missing pages in the finished scanning process, and we sometimes had difficulty finding specific documents that we knew existed in the files."

Woods Rogers has not pursued electronic storage of its newer documents, Gibney said. Instead, the firm stores hard-copy files with a company that provides secure document storage and retention. So the law firm is storing its paper records out of sight, but not completely letting go of them.

Chuck Hawthorne, managing partner at Integrated Imaging, said his company's business has grown. It still scans archive documents for some clients, and for other customers it provides a scanner so they can put their own documents into a server that Integrated Imaging makes accessible via the Internet.

Hawthorne said his company has refined its procedures for archiving. It uses an entry format that double-checks the operator's keystrokes when entering file numbers, just to make sure the files can be located in the invisible world of software.