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What good is Paperport?
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Posted by Derek Cornish
Oct 10, 2006 at 06:35 PM
I seem to remember that Paperport originally used to save files to its own proprietory format (was it *.max?). I think I had one of these less-than-useful versions (v7?) before they went over to *.pdf. It came with a scanner, and I never used either.
Posted by Graham Rhind
Oct 10, 2006 at 06:53 PM
I have been using PaperPort since version 10 (it is now on version 11). I started using it only when scanning became possible to a non-proprietary format (pdf).
I use it simply as a efficient way of digitizing my paper documents so that I can archive those and unclutter my office. I can store the documents to folders that mirror the physical folders that contained the paper versions. It contains OCR options and keyword searching, but I haven’t used either. I had no major problems with either version.
Graham Rhind
Posted by Chris Thompson
Oct 10, 2006 at 06:57 PM
These days, all of the major scanning packages (OmniPage, FineReader, Acrobat Pro, etc.),have an option to do OCR and embed searchable text in the PDF files they create. There’s no need to stick with PaperPort for that one feature. People stick with PaperPort because its organizational features meet their needs, but storing the PDF files in disk directories and using a file search tool like Google Desktop Search or Spotlight is fine too.
Note that the searchable text can be present even if the PDF still looks like a scanned bitmap document. You can tell if there’s a textual representation behind the scenes by using the Acrobat speech tools to have the document read to you, or by doing an export to text.