Document Imaging and Management

[Paul Curren]

Hi there,

I've been unsuccessful with my Googling so i'm hoping some of you may be
able to give me some pointers. I'm looking for document imaging software
for MacOS X. Previously I used Microsoft Office XP Document Imaging so
i'm looking for something like that or Scansoft's PaperPort application.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Paul C

[Linc Davis]

In article <3F1D0936.4070706@cisco.com>,
Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:

> I've been unsuccessful with my Googling so i'm hoping some of you may be
> able to give me some pointers. I'm looking for document imaging software
> for MacOS X. Previously I used Microsoft Office XP Document Imaging so
> i'm looking for something like that or Scansoft's PaperPort application.
>
> Any suggestions?

Clean up scanned images in GraphicConverter, then save as PDF and manage
with Acrobat. Acrobat 5 was garbage, but 6 is about halfway decent.

--
Linc Davis

The reply address is valid but will expire within 48 hours.

[Paul Curren]

I've been coming to a conclusion similar to that.

To be able to properly search across the PDF files I guess i'd need
something to OCR the scans before outputting to PDF files (otherwise it
would just be a PDF containing images of each page). Any suggestions for
that?

While this is all manageable it's just a shame there's no Mac
application that does each document in a single step - on the PC it was
a "fire and forget" process which was nice.

Cheers,

Paul C


Linc Davis wrote:

>In article <3F1D0936.4070706@cisco.com>,
> Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:
>
>
>

>>I've been unsuccessful with my Googling so i'm hoping some of you may be
>>able to give me some pointers. I'm looking for document imaging software
>>for MacOS X. Previously I used Microsoft Office XP Document Imaging so
>>i'm looking for something like that or Scansoft's PaperPort application.
>>
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>

>
>Clean up scanned images in GraphicConverter, then save as PDF and manage
>with Acrobat. Acrobat 5 was garbage, but 6 is about halfway decent.
>
>
>

[Ian McCall]

"Paul Curren" <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote in message
news:3F1E5AA7.6060606@cisco.com...

> To be able to properly search across the PDF files I guess i'd need
> something to OCR the scans before outputting to PDF files (otherwise it
> would just be a PDF containing images of each page). Any suggestions for
> that?

Not tried the Mac version, but on the PC Acrobat could do that with a
(freely) downloadable plug-in. Might want to check the Adobe site.


Cheers,
Ian

[Phil Lefebvre]

In article <ld-temp-f7xd-944559.21564822072003@text.giganews.com>,
Linc Davis <ld-temp-f7xd@pobox.com> wrote:

> In article <3F1D0936.4070706@cisco.com>,
> Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:
>

> > I've been unsuccessful with my Googling so i'm hoping some of you may be
> > able to give me some pointers. I'm looking for document imaging software
> > for MacOS X. Previously I used Microsoft Office XP Document Imaging so
> > i'm looking for something like that or Scansoft's PaperPort application.

I was a huge PaperPort addict in OS 9. Now in OS X I use OmniPage Pro X,
which will scan, OCR if you want, and save as PDF. I don't know how
accurate it is compared to Document Imaging, but that is what I find is
the best on the Mac.

--
Chicago, IL
Remove "GO" to reply.

[Paul Curren]

Thanks...i'm having a quick scan of OmniPage on the website at the moment.

I think it's pretty similar to what came bundled with my scanner
(ReadIris 7) so i'll give it a shot before deciding whether I need to
shell out for OminPage.

Paul C

Phil Lefebvre wrote:

>In article <ld-temp-f7xd-944559.21564822072003@text.giganews.com>,
> Linc Davis <ld-temp-f7xd@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>

>>In article <3F1D0936.4070706@cisco.com>,
>> Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>

>>>I've been unsuccessful with my Googling so i'm hoping some of you may be
>>>able to give me some pointers. I'm looking for document imaging software
>>>for MacOS X. Previously I used Microsoft Office XP Document Imaging so
>>>i'm looking for something like that or Scansoft's PaperPort application.
>>>
>>>

>
>I was a huge PaperPort addict in OS 9. Now in OS X I use OmniPage Pro X,
>which will scan, OCR if you want, and save as PDF. I don't know how
>accurate it is compared to Document Imaging, but that is what I find is
>the best on the Mac.
>
>
>

[Linc Davis]

In article <3F1FFEB4.1060309@cisco.com>,
Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:

> Thanks...i'm having a quick scan of OmniPage on the website at the moment.
>
> I think it's pretty similar to what came bundled with my scanner
> (ReadIris 7) so i'll give it a shot before deciding whether I need to
> shell out for OminPage.

Before paying for Omnipage, consider that it's now owned by Scansoft.
They're not Mac developers. They buy the rights to Mac software that
would otherwise be abandoned, and have neither the ability nor the
inclination to maintain it. That's what they did with PaperPort as well
as Omnipage. When Omnipage breaks under a future version of the Mac OS,
expect no help from them. I don't use OCR much, but in Acrobat 6 it's
about as good as OCR ever is, and if you're going to manage PDF archives
you need Acrobat anyway. I'm not an advocate for it; there just isn't
anything else.

--
Linc Davis

The reply address is valid but will expire within 48 hours.

[Paul Curren]

Thanks again for peoples input. Just by way of conclusion for the
moment, here's what i'm doing...

I've discovered that the PDF format seems to support a feature where by
an image and text can be layered within the one document i.e. I can scan
a page and have an exact representation of that page image as the visual
display within the PDF. However, in a layer beneath, the PDF seems to
hold the text of the scan (i've OCR'd it previously). If you do textual
searches within the PDF it performs this search on the text layer, and
makes a pretty good attempt at mapping the selection box onto the
displayed document image on the visual layer.

I'm not sure of the technicalities of how this is done, but in usage
that's what it appears to be doing.

ReadIris Pro 7 appears to understand (or make use of this feature of PDF
files) and so creates these documents automatically from the scanner.

The version of PDF documents created by ReadIris Pro 7 are compatible
with MacOS 10.2 Finder to the extent that you can search their contents
directly.Therefore, all my document archiving needs are currently met, I
have exact representations of all my documents as PDF files, with the
capability to search amongst the contents of the documents.

The only slight glitch is that PDF won't support 1 bit (black and white)
images for it's display layer - meaning that the scanning time is
greater than it would have to be, and the resultant PDF's are larger
than they need be.

I dare say at somepoint in the future I may find this "half-assed"
solution a bit limiting, and then I may well need to consider the
Acrobat recommendation, but for now this seems to do the business.

Cheers,

Paul C



Linc Davis wrote:

>In article <3F1FFEB4.1060309@cisco.com>,
> Paul Curren <pcurren@cisco.com> wrote:
>
>
>

>>Thanks...i'm having a quick scan of OmniPage on the website at the moment.
>>
>>I think it's pretty similar to what came bundled with my scanner
>>(ReadIris 7) so i'll give it a shot before deciding whether I need to
>>shell out for OminPage.
>>
>>

>
>Before paying for Omnipage, consider that it's now owned by Scansoft.
>They're not Mac developers. They buy the rights to Mac software that
>would otherwise be abandoned, and have neither the ability nor the
>inclination to maintain it. That's what they did with PaperPort as well
>as Omnipage. When Omnipage breaks under a future version of the Mac OS,
>expect no help from them. I don't use OCR much, but in Acrobat 6 it's
>about as good as OCR ever is, and if you're going to manage PDF archives
>you need Acrobat anyway. I'm not an advocate for it; there just isn't
>anything else.
>
>
>