(Archived) Can I control the ScanSnap configuration when scanning to Evernote?

[fm75 3]

Using ScanSnap with the IX 500 is really a delight. I can configure various profiles to control how the scanning should take place. So for example, I can set up an entry for scanning waivers to a folder (for example a dropbox folder) and have it do a single sided scan without OCR (the only thing that really changes is the signature) and have each page go to a separate file. I can set it to scan a batch of checks, single sided with OCR, one file per batch, or deposit slips, double sided, to one file in a folder.

What I really want to do is scan to Evernote, with that same level of scanning control. Currently, I can create profile entries for the type of scan that I want but:

1. I can't set the destination Notebook.
2. I can't prevent it from scanning both sides.

As a result, if I scan direct to Evernote, I get 2 sided scans to the default notebook, no matter which profile I use. This means that I have to select the notebook after it scans - not too terrible - but it scans both sides of the check. One side is sufficient. The fact that the check gets OCR'ed is really nice because it is easy to search for checks by the payer. OCR on things like waivers and performer's releases is a waste, since the text in them is all the same.

This office type of Application is being done on a Mac. Does anybody know how to solve this? Does Evernote have any AppleScripting that might help?

I also want to be able to do the same thing on Windows - There is a slightly older model of the scanner in the physical office.

 

[bduncan 49]

There's isn't a way within the ScanSnap settings to select a notebook (as you've found out). A workaround would be to have Profiles set up to scan to specific folders, and then have it so that if anything is dropped into those folders, they get imported to certain notebooks in Evernote.

 

-On Windows this is easy because Evernote for Windows has Import folder functionality (or at least I assume Evernote 5 still has it. I can't check at the moment).

 

-On the Mac it is a little more complicated, but as you suggest it is doable with AppleScript. You can set up a Folder Action and have it kick off an Evernote import from there. In this post I talk about Hazel, but if you read the scripts in it (and read the comments too) it can be adjusted to a Folder Action I'm sure. http://www.documentsnap.com/behind-these-paperless-evernote-hazel-eyes/.

[fm75 3]

bduncan - Thanks. Took me a while to get back to this. With your reference and some messing around I have gotten an applescript folder action set up.
That said, I would like to enhance it a bit. The current version can detect the folder name, so that I can re-use it for other folders, so long as the folders are just plain folders and I can choose the folder name to match the notebook name. The ScanSnap part can now be tailored to do exactly what I want for each action.

 

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving dropped_items	--display dialog (this_folder as text)	set fullPath to this_folder as text	set {tid, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, ":"}	set e to text items of fullPath	set lastOne to (count of e) - 1	--display dialog item lastOne of e	set targetNotebook to item lastOne of e	repeat with eachFile in dropped_items		--display dialog (dropped_items as text)		tell application "Evernote"			activate			create note from file eachFile notebook targetNotebook			tell application "Finder" to delete file eachFile		end tell	end repeatend adding folder items to

The notebooks that I really want to put them into are in a stack (?). I would like to mimic that by picking up the folder/sub-folder on the Mac to match the Stack-Notebook in Evernote. Does anybody happen to know what modification I need to script in the stack part? Just in case I don't happen onto it by just experimenting. If I can do that, then I need only 2 scripts to handle anything that we might want to do. 

Applescript noob! Any suggestions or criticisms are very welcome here.

[fm75 3]

OK. After a bit more research I found that others want to be able to handle stacks on a Mac as well. Apparently there is no support for it in AppleScript. Here is a link to a useful reference to the AppleScripting API. 

 

At least it shows support for tags. Notebooks do have some attributes but it did not look like they were being used to distinguish between notebooks and stacks. I guess exposing a stack in the Mac Evernote app has not been done yet. 

I could try doing this in the Python SDK, I guess. But I don't think it has a hook to the Folder Events. Maybe the "linux"-like part of the OS has it. But to go that route would be going into the cloud API and bring in the update limit issues.