35 replies to this topic

[Ncdad1]

I am all excited that I have my new scanner and EN all hooked up.

So, I have lots of folders with things that interest me that I would like to convert.

For example, I have a folder for places I would like visit.

Say the files has 20 sheets of paper each with a place I want to visit.

When I scan the papers in, I get one document with 20 pages. I noticed that there is an option to create 20 separate pages in the profile.

I am putting all the documents in a folder called "Places to Visit"

My question is should I scan all the pages into one document or multiple pages???

The problem I see is that later, I will get more pages of places to visit and will create another document which is the same subject but a separate document than the previous one I scanned.

I can see myself with many documents with collections of places to visit all of various sizes depending how many I scanned that day. That does not sound efficient.

Maybe I should scan pages into a single document when they should be kept together like a 20 page presentation which would get confusing if scanned into separate pages.

Some advice please before I start scanning everything I have and get rid of the files.

[jbenson2]

It has been my experience that more smaller notes are more useful in Evernote than a few big notes.

I have one PDF that is 200 pages long.
It is the 2008 John McCain playbook of opposition research covering virtually every political topic imaginable.
And it has 56 tags.

It is just too big to be useable.

[Ncdad1]

A follow up

I do not think I have any documents that if I lost would ruin me and most of my "stuff" is information I enjoy collecting (e.g. places I want to visit, technical articles, etc.).

I saw the articles on scanning PDFs to a file and than letting local EN monitor the file so that the computer processes the PDFs in batches and at first seemed too complicated for what I do but now seems more interesting as I do more scanning.

I signed up for the Premium service so I am assuming I do not really need to have the scanner do the OCR since EN will be doing it for me?? If you do a ScanSnap OCR and an EN online OCR are two better than one??

Finally, I don't want to make a lot of back ups ... paper is already pain and I don't want to complicate my life with lots of back ups.

So, my plan is:

1) set up the scan to file and EN batch process to speed things along. So, not have the ScanSnap do the OCR but let EN online do it.
2) erase the scanned file after it has been processed by EN since I really do not need the document that badly.
3) trust that EN online has a good backup up process and I will not back up the local machine knowing EN online will let me look back a few version if I get desperate.
4) I will scan the documents (e.g. articles on places to live for example) to separate sheets to make them more useful as suggested above though I wonder if multi-page articles would be better kept together??

Do I have a plan? Have I missed something?

[GrumpyMonkey]

A follow up

I do not think I have any documents that if I lost would ruin me and most of my "stuff" is information I enjoy collecting (e.g. places I want to visit, technical articles, etc.).

I saw the articles on scanning PDFs to a file and than letting local EN monitor the file so that the computer processes the PDFs in batches and at first seemed too complicated for what I do but now seems more interesting as I do more scanning.

I signed up for the Premium service so I am assuming I do not really need to have the scanner do the OCR since EN will be doing it for me?? If you do a ScanSnap OCR and an EN online OCR are two better than one??

Hi. Welcome to the forums! Evernote will do the OCR for you. You do not need to do it yourself. There are a few restrictions, but it does not sound like you will need to worry about them.
 

http://evernote.com/...rticle/23169032

Finally, I don't want to make a lot of back ups ... paper is already pain and I don't want to complicate my life with lots of back ups.

On the Mac, plug in an external hard drive every once in a while and it does the rest (Time Machine). For the truly lazy, Sugarsync (cloud backup) will do the Evernote folder automatically. For the extreme version of lazy, Carbonite will do your whole drive, and you don't even have to point it to the Evernote folder. With so many options, it is difficult to imagine why you wouldn't back up your stuff...

So, my plan is:

1) set up the scan to file and EN batch process to speed things along. So, not have the ScanSnap do the OCR but let EN online do it.
2) erase the scanned file after it has been processed by EN since I really do not need the document that badly.
3) trust that EN online has a good backup up process and I will not back up the local machine knowing EN online will let me look back a few version if I get desperate.

Evernote is trustworthy, but again, there really isn't any downside to backing up your data on your own. This is something that Evernote implicitly encourages through design by stressing that it is your data and so they make sure you have a copy of everything on your hard drive.

4) I will scan the documents (e.g. articles on places to live for example) to separate sheets to make them more useful as suggested above though I wonder if multi-page articles would be better kept together??

Do I have a plan? Have I missed something?

I would keep things together. I have PDFs of books, articles, etc. in notes. I extract pages on occasion, but I generally find it more useful to keep stuff from each source together.

Good luck!

[Candid]

Depending on the type of scanner you maybe able to set the scanner to scan each page as a document.

I can do this with my Scansnap 1300.

Here's a link to the thread that includes how:
http://discussion.ev...wbie-questions/

[BurgersNFries]

Finally, I don't want to make a lot of back ups ... paper is already pain and I don't want to complicate my life with lots of back ups.

That's certainly your choice. But just wait & see how complicated your life becomes if you ever lose your important data...

Seriously, making backups is not complex or complicated, especially since most backup apps can be scheduled to run automatically. Of course it's best to occasionally do some due diligence & try restoring from one to make sure the process is working.

WRT scanning... I prefer to not load a pile of papers into the feeder. Instead, I load what I want to be in the single document. I then give the file a significant name such as "places I want to visit - Costa Rica". I can then leave a copy of it on my PC's hard drive, where I can quickly/easily find it using Locate32 (which runs a single search across all my many hard drives). I also place a copy in an EN import folder where it gets sucked into EN & then the note title is defaulted to the file name. I can then also easily search EN for this note.

[Ncdad1]

To clarify ... I backup my financials on my machine and two externals and the cloud ... I can not bring myself to put the same amount of safe guards into magazine articles about places to visit .... I am trying to move paper from being a burden that I constantly worry about to something that I enjoy when I can ...

What I ended up doing was:

Took my folder of "places to visit"

ScanSnapped to a PDF
I set the scanner to multi-page ... I only scanned in one page for one pager and multiple pages for multi-pagers ... that way it resemble the physical article ...
I did not do any pre-OCRing and figured I would let EN do that.
It was kind or easy just feeding in paper and having it show up in EN on my computer ... I just selected "Places to Visit" folder and the documents just flowed in ..

I did have some concerns about what quality to pick ... the better the quality the bigger the size ...I picked one up from normal since that seemed to be a good compromise ...

A few things I would like to clear up ...

If I write a list of ideas and scan them in ....I understand EN will decipher the hand writing ... can I scan in the handwritten notes into a PDF or do they need to go into a JPG to get the decipher option?? I would prefer to stay with one profile and PDF and not have to think about this too much.

It appears that I can export my PDFs from EN if needed?? At least with a piece of paper it transcends technology (tape, diskette, CD, DVD) so I assume all the PDFs could be moved and converted to something else years from now?? I think about this because I just had all my parent's slides converted to a DVD and now wonder how long I have until DVDs are gone ... the 80 year old picture album is still going strong ...

[bduncan]

A few things I would like to clear up ...

If I write a list of ideas and scan them in ....I understand EN will decipher the hand writing ... can I scan in the handwritten notes into a PDF or do they need to go into a JPG to get the decipher option?? I would prefer to stay with one profile and PDF and not have to think about this too much.

It appears that I can export my PDFs from EN if needed?? At least with a piece of paper it transcends technology (tape, diskette, CD, DVD) so I assume all the PDFs could be moved and converted to something else years from now?? I think about this because I just had all my parent's slides converted to a DVD and now wonder how long I have until DVDs are gone ... the 80 year old picture album is still going strong ...

If you want Evernote to attempt to decipher your handwriting, it will need to be in JPG format. As of the current time, Evernote doesn't decipher handwriting in a PDF.

Regarding exporting PDFs, yes you can. This is particularly easy on the Mac with the new Save Attachments feature that they added, but I am sure that will be coming to other platforms too.

[Ncdad1]

Regarding exporting PDFs, yes you can. This is particularly easy on the Mac with the new Save Attachments feature that they added, but I am sure that will be coming to other platforms too.

I am using Windows now but will be switching to MAC next year ... will that be an issue with EN?

I was thinking all I would need to do was install the MAC client and my notes would sync off the web to the MAC client??

I thought all the clients would sync back and forth so for the most part I would be platform agnostic ... though I did notice that the PDFs I just scanned in from "places I would like to visit" show up in the preview window on my windows client but only the PDF icon shows up on the preview window on my online client ... of course, I can click on the PDF and see the document??

[bduncan]

I was thinking all I would need to do was install the MAC client and my notes would sync off the web to the MAC client??

I thought all the clients would sync back and forth so for the most part I would be platform agnostic ...

Switching from Windows to Mac is no problem. It works as you describe - you install the Mac client and all your notes and documents will sync back and forth.

[GrumpyMonkey]

Regarding exporting PDFs, yes you can. This is particularly easy on the Mac with the new Save Attachments feature that they added, but I am sure that will be coming to other platforms too.

I am using Windows now but will be switching to MAC next year ... will that be an issue with EN?

I was thinking all I would need to do was install the MAC client and my notes would sync off the web to the MAC client??

I thought all the clients would sync back and forth so for the most part I would be platform agnostic ... though I did notice that the PDFs I just scanned in from "places I would like to visit" show up in the preview window on my windows client but only the PDF icon shows up on the preview window on my online client ... of course, I can click on the PDF and see the document??

No problems. It's like magic. I did it one year ago.

The PDF thing is changed in Preferences on the Mac by going to Clippings and viewing inline or as attachments.

One thing to note is that there are significant differences in the user interface. Some people are deeply attached to certain things like search explanations (unavailable in Mac) and raise a big stink about it on the forums, because Windows has it. There is nowhere to go at the moment to see the differences in interfaces, but if you ask here about some of your favorite things, users here can offer screenshots and advice.

Of course, if there does turn out to be a feature you just cannot live without, like green-colored notes, then you could always run Evernote in Bootcamp mode (Windows on the Mac)

[Ncdad1]

Any idea when EN does PDF OCRing or how long it takes ? I looked at the PDFs I scanned in yesterday and they appear to still be pictures. I am trying to highlight the text to see if the file was OCRed. Is there a flag or indicator to say OCR was done?

[Ncdad1]

Also, suggestions welcome on next step ... unimportant stuff scanned great into EN ... now the important stuff like financials ...

So, I want to replace my physical file cabinet with a virtual one on EN ... but I want to make sure my wife can access it ... so I am assuming I can either give here my ID and PW or share my folders with her ... has anyone done this - replacing a physical file cabinet with a virtual one and shared it with a spouse or partner so everyone knows where the important documents are kept?

[GrumpyMonkey]

Also, suggestions welcome on next step ... unimportant stuff scanned great into EN ... now the important stuff like financials ...

So, I want to replace my physical file cabinet with a virtual one on EN ... but I want to make sure my wife can access it ... so I am assuming I can either give here my ID and PW or share my folders with her ... has anyone done this - replacing a physical file cabinet with a virtual one and shared it with a spouse or partner so everyone knows where the important documents are kept?

1. OCR takes a period of time that seems to vary and be outside of your control. I do not know how to find out if something has been OCR'd. When I check on my PDFs, I have some that indicate attachment status (see the information icon in the top right), but I have some from months ago that still have not been indexed. I am not sure what this means, but since I OCR my own things, and these PDFs are too large for Evernote to OCR, that might mean it will always be this way. I guess I am not sure what "indexed" means. It seems to have been indexed for the seach.

2. Virtual file cabinets are what Evernote does best. I started with my file cabinets, moved to my bookshelves, and now I have almost everything in Evernote (I still have a few hundred books to digitize, but I am eating my way through them).

3. Sharing with a spouse. Hmmmm.... Well, I keep everything in Evernote, and as much as I love my spouse, I prefer to have a few things that she doesn't see. It isn't that I have created notebooks of ***** (you know someone out there has) or keep love letters from all of my mistresses in there. I have stupid things like birthday gift research and so forth that probably are not so secret, but are still things I would rather not show. Anyhow, we have separate accounts and share notebooks as needed. To me, this seems like the ideal approach.

[Ncdad1]

hmm ... I am wondering if I should revert back to OCRing my docments in ScanSnap just in case EN does not get around to it or the docs fail some criteria ... do you get better results by double OCRing (ScanSnap + EN)??

On the spouse ... well ... if I die, my wife needs to know where the insurance papers are, the online PW and Pins, the copy of the will, all the account info which use to be in the physical file cabinet.

It would be sad to stick your wife and kids with even more pain because they can not access the accounts to pay for groceries and the mortgage.

[jbenson2]

Ncdad1
You posted some very good reasons.

I always OCR my documents before submitting them to Evernote.

Here is another reason:
You don't have to remember Evernote's 5 rules of PDF OCR processing
https://support.ever...0 5&docID=23888


Or even understand them.
Consider the head-scratcher Rule #3 for instance:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The PDF does not contain at least one "scanned" page, defined as:

• A "scanned" page contains at least 1025 pixels of image data
• A "scanned" page contains no more than 512 characters of regular, searchable text (e.g. this is enough for a text-based fax header or similar). PDF files that have already been processed by a separate OCR system will not satisfy this condition and will be rejected.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[GrumpyMonkey]

hmm ... I am wondering if I should revert back to OCRing my docments in ScanSnap just in case EN does not get around to it or the docs fail some criteria ... do you get better results by double OCRing (ScanSnap + EN)??

On the spouse ... well ... if I die, my wife needs to know where the insurance papers are, the online PW and Pins, the copy of the will, all the account info which use to be in the physical file cabinet.

It would be sad to stick your wife and kids with even more pain because they can not access the accounts to pay for groceries and the mortgage.

Hi. I OCR everything. I am sure Evernote's OCR would be fine for most people. And, I am certainly glad it is there. But, there are some concrete benefits to doing it yourself.

(1) On the Mac, your Evernote account is indexed, so that everything is also searchable from outside the application. I use HoudahSpot, but I think you can use Spotlight if you'd like.
(2) No need to worry about OCR limitations (as mentioned by jb)
(3) You can be more precise. A lot of my documents have a mix of languages, and OCR does a lot better at deciphering text if it knows what language it is looking at.
(4) You can enjoy the benefits of OCR immediately, instead of waiting.

By the way, it is my understanding that Evernote does not re-OCR anything that is already OCR'd.

As for the account thing, of course your wife ought to have your passwords and access to everything! I don't care if she finds out about her birthday present research after I die! But, I do while I am alive, and it is a little easier to have some privacy when we have separate accounts. We don't share email accounts for the same reason. Like I said, sharing a notebook full of all the important documents will make it possible for her to access them just as if she was in your account, so it seems like the ideal solution to me.

[Michael Campbell]

hmm ... I am wondering if I should revert back to OCRing my docments in ScanSnap just in case EN does not get around to it or the docs fail some criteria ... do you get better results by double OCRing (ScanSnap + EN)??

On the spouse ... well ... if I die, my wife needs to know where the insurance papers are, the online PW and Pins, the copy of the will, all the account info which use to be in the physical file cabinet.

It would be sad to stick your wife and kids with even more pain because they can not access the accounts to pay for groceries and the mortgage.

I always OCR with scansnap before sending to Evernote.

[Ncdad1]

So, after scanning all my receipts in I wanted to test recovery and tranportability ... so I clicked on export and the formats offered are ENEX, html, mht.

I was thinking the export would be PDF??

I scanned in the receipts into EN and deleted the PDF thinking EN stored the PDFs in the cloud?

I don't have to keep the PDFs do I?? The more things to keep up with the more complicated it gets.

[GrumpyMonkey]

So, after scanning all my receipts in I wanted to test recovery and tranportability ... so I clicked on export and the formats offered are ENEX, html, mht.

I was thinking the export would be PDF??

I scanned in the receipts into EN and deleted the PDF thinking EN stored the PDFs in the cloud?

I don't have to keep the PDFs do I?? The more things to keep up with the more complicated it gets.

Hi. Actually, Evernote makes it pretty simple. Export as HTML and it will produce folders with html documents and associated attachments contained within them. If you are on a Mac, it stores your files so that they are searchable with Spotlight or any other search software. On Windows, as I understand it, Evernote stores files in a database, and the contents are not searchable from outside of the application. So, if you want to find something on the Mac, you don't even have to export it. Just type in the filename or a keyword, locate the PDF, copy, and paste it into your documents (or wherever you want to use it).

Anyhow, give the export to HTML feature a try. I think you will be pleased with the results.