Document Automation at home

Post by **DJF3** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:06 am

Hi,

Part of my home automation projects is to eliminate all of my paper mail & documents.
Goal:
-Scan each incoming document (scanner with sheetfeeder)
-Store the scan as PDF and have the content OCR'd and indexed (so you can search for the contents of your scanned documents.
-I will then store all papers in a binder for each month.
-Files will be stored on NAS or server.

What I've found so far as a solution for:
Hardware

HP Scanjet 5590 360
URL: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/nl/nl/sm ... 77692.html
and the..

HP Scanjet N6010 398
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/nl/nl/sm ... 49432.html

Software
Paperport Pro 11 $ 199
http://www.nuance.com/paperport/professional/
Demo/Tour: http://www.nuance.com/paperport/profess ... etour.asp#

Apparently this sw can SCAN your papers into PDF but also INDEX the contents using OCR. That means you can search your scanned PDF documents for their contents.

Ideal: If the application would store and name the scanned file based on its content and send me emails if specific content is found...

Well, let's not push it DJ

Any thoughts/ideas on this subject?
(other hardware, software, etc)

</DJ>

Post by **wimmer** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:35 am

You must be getting a lot of letters to do this. Normally they do this in an office. They use only a few indexes and not the whole paper and use is for easy look up and work flow.

I think it will be very complicated if you ever get it working.
Put the scanner under your letterbox so the postman can do the scan work.

When it is good, try to make it better, use it only when it is best!!

Post by **MindBender** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:11 am

I'm using a HP Digital Sender 9250c, but I'm not archiving my entire mail yet.
I purchased it mainly to get rid of my shelves full of documentation, which I don't really need but I didn't want to throw away either.

I planned to use it as a fax with HP software installed on my server, but I couldn't get that to work. Well, who still uses a fax anyway?

Post by **Snelvuur** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:54 am

I have one of those all in one HP cxxxx ones, with fax in it aswell. It has a sheet feeder and i did set it up to use 1 button and it starts scanning it into pdf.

I dont really index all my mails, i just store it as pdf only with a correct name. I for instance a rent bill in the corresponding folder "rent" / "year" .. its still some work to do, but after that i just throw away all the mail.

I think this was the one i have http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/nl/nl/ho ... 04782.html

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **TANE** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:32 pm

I started long time ago with the previews version of the first scanner at the top th HP 5530
I Have converted about 80 of documents to PDF's

Need to do that again for the last 3 years.
I scanned so much that the scanner need revision /replacement.
My next scanner will be network version with auto scan to nas folder.

Post by **Snelvuur** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:01 pm

My printer does dumping pdf's on nas folders (via pc) if needed, and it has network aswell (wifi too, got knows why) only downside is that when you click on "scan" you stil get a question on your pc saying when its done "want to scan another/more?" which if it comes from the sheet feeder shouldn't do.

btw http://www.nuancestore.com/dr/v2/ec_MAI ... CACHE_ID=0 is the dutch version , but its 149 euro's. So i think the 199 dollar is cheaper no?

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Bastiaan** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:07 pm

For exactly the same reason I ordered an expensive set, advertist as a network scanner.
When the box arrived it was a standard USB scanner (HP scanjet 7650) with an AXIS server box.
The scanner works fine, the Axis is a clumsy box where you have to add profiles (using a webinterface), how and what to scan and where to store on the network. It has a small screen where you hardly recognize the profiles. Funny enough the 'network' scanners needs FTP and cannot store directly on network shares.
Its also not possible to use USB and network together because the AXIS box uses the USB port.
I scan to my NAS /Windows Home Server where I also used to run a dedicated plugin. http://www.archound.com/page986.aspx
Not to bad but it still is too much manual input.
Bottomline: if you go cheap you get a slow scanner, even when you spent money it will be hard to find a really good working system under 1000 euro.

Bastiaan

Post by **TANE** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:13 pm

I'm not sure how intelligent the paperport software is at the moment..
what I need...
just scan an store the images on a nas.
scan all documents with intelligent OCR software and use indexing for finding it back.

Post by **Bastiaan** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:15 pm

I thought that most modern PDF managers could index straight from PDF?

Post by **TANE** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:16 pm

Also image PDF files?

Post by **wimmer** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:23 am

If your system must index an image it must be first trough a OCR program. This makes from the image a word file. Then you need a program what will recognize the words an make the index file, so you can lookup very fast. this needs an lot of CPU power. In the prof world the use a logo on an invoice to index and make a work flow or the use a bar code to achieve, this works much easier and faster. We use always tiff files, these lose less information by compressing the file. 200dpi is enough to achieve and when you use bar code use 240 or 300 dpi to recognize it.

When it is good, try to make it better, use it only when it is best!!

Post by **TANE** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:00 pm

There are some professional system that will do that on the fly..just ocr what is readable for the search index...nothing more.
I have build my own structure and scanned all my documents from end 80's
example:
[Bank]-[1991]
Abnmaro
SNS
Giro
etc..
All multi page documents some more than 50 pages

One of my old documents..

uploaded/Chak/20081012205728_Kenwood Keuken machine.pdf

Post by **Alexander** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:18 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Chak
 I'm not sure how intelligent the paperport software is at the moment..
what I need...
just scan an store the images on a nas.
scan all documents with intelligent OCR software and use indexing for finding it back.

Post by **DJF3** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:42 pm

I have tested Paperport and it does stuff like index images & PDF files using OCR. Then you can search inside these documents even though they might contain tons of pictures.
Nice.. It's one step towards the final solution.

Post by **Snelvuur** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:51 pm

I tried paperport too, but it really screws up my pc. I gues its again the price for running a 64bits system...

// Erik (binkey.nl)