Well not quite, but I'd like to scan all my post and then shed it. Is there a program that will scan a document, read it and store it automatically with other documents with a similar layout or words? Also need a scanner with an automatic document feeding capability..any recommendations on products that can? or websites that can help me out here?
cheers all!
Steve
Weld your letterbox shut and tell all your correspondents you are only receiving email. You know it makes sense.
I think the best you will be able to do is get an industrial strength scanner, and have it dump files into a holding arae, where you can lift em and pope em into the right directories with somethibg
It's probably a thing that Linux plus scripting could do.
No program can really analyse the contents of a bit map as reliably as your can.
Be careful tho. I have personally seamlessly forged a pair of scanned documents into a single one, and added a third scanned signature, just to see if I could. , so the legal status of scanned copies is probably pretty low.
Hi,
I'm not really sure what you mean by this requirement: "store it automatically with other documents with a similar layout or words"
I've made a start at trying to reduce my paper mountain. I've been using Paperport, which is a piece of software to manage the scanning and archiving of documents. There seem to be mixed reviews of it, but I've found it to be fine. It will store scanned documents in PDF format (so maximal future-proofing and compatibilty with other software). It will also OCR and index the text as you go, so the PDFs are searchable.
I got myself a Dell 1815dn a couple of months ago which I recommend (and the reviewers back me up on this one). It's an all-in-one scanner, laser printer, fax machine and photocopier. The price per sheet for printing is one of the lowest you'll find. I paid around =A3180 on Ebay and managed to get some cheap toner at the same time to keep me going for a good couple of years. The scanner has a 50-sheet document feeder, which is great for dumping all of last years phone bills in while you have a cup of tea. The only missing feature is that the scanner will not scan both sides of the document in one pass. However, Paperport allows you to achieve double-sided scanning by flipping the pages over and sending them through again - the software sorts out the page ordering. As I recall from my research, genuine duplex scanners are in a significantly higher price bracket.
Cheers!
Martin
HP do document scanners, but the only sort i've used (and it was a good few years ago) was a Canoscan thing that took magneto-optical discs...
I've used both; the modern HP ones are very fast (like a good copier) but I guess expensive. The Dell mentioned above sounds good to me
I think that all these gizmos are a total waste of time/money. They're a great idea, but real accountants (who are the ones who truly run the business) will only pay any attention to bits of paper. Anything purely on a screen is anathema to them.
They haven't 'had the course'...
What's your backup strategy for your HDD?
Hi,
I'm not really sure what you mean by this requirement: "store it automatically with other documents with a similar layout or words"
I've made a start at trying to reduce my paper mountain. I've been using Paperport, which is a piece of software to manage the scanning and archiving of documents. There seem to be mixed reviews of it, but I've found it to be fine. It will store scanned documents in PDF format (so maximal future-proofing and compatibilty with other software). It will also OCR and index the text as you go, so the PDFs are searchable.
I got myself a Dell 1815dn a couple of months ago which I recommend (and the reviewers back me up on this one). It's an all-in-one scanner, laser printer, fax machine and photocopier. The price per sheet for printing is one of the lowest you'll find. I paid around £180 on Ebay and managed to get some cheap toner at the same time to keep me going for a good couple of years. The scanner has a 50-sheet document feeder, which is great for dumping all of last years phone bills in while you have a cup of tea. The only missing feature is that the scanner will not scan both sides of the document in one pass. However, Paperport allows you to achieve double-sided scanning by flipping the pages over and sending them through again - the software sorts out the page ordering. As I recall from my research, genuine duplex scanners are in a significantly higher price bracket.
Cheers!
Martin
What i mean is that once a page has been scanned, it is automatically OCR'd and then by comparing the first say 10 words with other documents it has previously OCR'd and if it finds a close match, files it away with those. I.e. if i scan a bill for South Staffs Water, it files it with all other stuff with South Staffs Water, saving me having to organise them manually.
Steve
I use Norton Ghost 10, backing up to a remote HD in the loft.
Steve
We have a Fuji SnapScan(?) at work which will do these things.
Pretty pointless if you have a fire. Much better to back up to somewhere that won't burn in the same fire.
Its in a fire proof box.
Steve
A standard fire proof box will keep paper safe for about 30 minutes. It will keep a hdd safe for about 10 minutes and the either the heat will destroy it or the water from the fire hose will. Not a viable backup strategy IMO.
In a commercial situation, the safe jars when either it falls through the floors of the burning building, or the building collapses on top of it. The contents are often still OK at this point, but are then destroyed by the welding torch which is required to open the jarred safe.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.