Since the promise of a paperless society hasn’t yet been realized, a good document-management software program can be a wonderful addition to any computer user’s arsenal of lifestyle and business management tools. I have used PaperPort for years. It has always been a good tool, but this new version has elevated the program to a new, highly useful level.
The PaperPort program allows you to scan documents, organize documents that already exist on your hard drive, and save and organize Web pages. Previous versions saved files in a proprietary .max file format. While, you can still use the .max format, you can now save documents in the widely-used PDF format. The new PaperPort even allows you to create PFD files from Microsoft Office documents. This new reliance on PFD files is a big plus for users. It lets you share the files more easily and also allows you to be confident that the files you are creating will be useable in the future, even if you don’t stick with the PaperPort program. PaperPort also contains a good OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine that will let you scan in a text document and turn it into text that is readable to any word processing document. The OCR engine also allows you to search text in a PDF file. This feature alone may be worth the price of the program for some.
The installation of the program is quick and easy, as is the easy-to-use interface. You can view documents as thumbnails or in full-screen mode. You can organize them into folders in the main window, and can even stack documents that you want to keep together. You can give each document a few keywords to help identify it. PaperPort contains a SimpleSearch feature which is a powerful all-in-one search engine that helps you find any document easily.
Scanning documents into the software program is also easy. You can clean, straighten, and otherwise adjust the scanned documents. You can even add annotations and sticky notes. A row of icons on the bottom of the screen represent all the programs that PaperPort supports. These programs are found automatically upon installation. You can drag any document to an icon and the appropriate action will be taken. For example, drag a document to your e-mail program and a new e-mail will be started with the document already attached. Drag a document to your word processing program, and it will go through the OCR engine and be ready to edit. Drag a document into your compression software program and a compressed version is automatically generated. This is an intelligent feature that works quite well.
PaperPort version 9 also includes a new form recognition feature. The FormTyper automatically recognizes the fields on a scanned form so you can simply tab from field to field, fill out the form and save an electronic version for your records. While an office user might use this feature quite often, the average home user may find they use it only occasionally.
The PDF creation feature worked adequately for short documents, but is a little slow. It is obviously not as robust as the full version of Adobe’s Acrobat PDF creation program. Don’t expect it to be able to create an entire book or manual. One other potential problem is that PaperPort automatically created a My PaperPort Documents folder in the My Documents folder. You cannot delete or change this folder. While many will find that this is an excellent place to store the PaperPort documents, others will be aggravated by the programs lack of flexibility in this arena.
One thing that pops up in my “What’s not to like?” area is the technical support for the program. Although ScanSoft offers an online knowledge base and user forum, the free technical support consists of only one call or e-mail to ScanSoft. Incidents after the first one are charged at $19.95 per incident. Although ScanSoft offers a 30-day return on the program, there is no free demo. So if you purchase the program, be ready to thoroughly test it in the first week or two to make sure you don’t have any problems.
PaperPort comes in two versions. The $199 PaperPort Pro 9 Office, which is reviewed here is suggested for office use. The $99 PaperPort Deluxe 9, which lacks some of the PDF creation features, such as the ability to create PDF directly from Office programs, is recommended for home users. Although the PaperPort program is fairly expensive, the PDF creation feature, the OCR engine, the form filler, and the great organizational qualities make it a worthwhile investment.
If you have a scanner and mounds of papers on your desk, PaperPort will help you tame your paper piles. If you are an avid Web surfer, you can use PaperPort to save and organize Web pages. Home users will love it for its ability to organize everything from recipes to birth certificates. Office users will love its networkability and sharing features. PaperPort truly has something for everyone.
