(Archived) scansnap and Nas

[confusedxx 0]

Hi All

 

I am going to buy a scansnap ix500.  My plan is to become paperless and archive all important docs.

 

I have been reading that if I use Scansnap to create PDF files with OCR then Evernote will not ocr the documents, but will use the ocr embedded into the pdf, correct?

 

Is there a sample workflow and set of tools that you would recommend for my ideal scenario:

 

1.  I want to scan stuff from iMac using Scansnap ix500 and have it automatically added to my default inbox in Evernote (have premium account).

2.  In parallel, I wanted to have the PDF added to a document management system and a copy of the PDF stored on my NAS server

 

 

 

QUESTIONS:

Is there a benefit to keeping a copy of the PDF on my NAS?

 

Is it better to use Scansnap software to OCR or let Evernote OCR it?

 

Is there any benefit to having paperport or other DMS or can evernote do it all?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi All

 

I am going to buy a scansnap ix500.  My plan is to become paperless and archive all important docs.

 

I have been reading that if I use Scansnap to create PDF files with OCR then Evernote will not ocr the documents, but will use the ocr embedded into the pdf, correct?

 

Is there a sample workflow and set of tools that you would recommend for my ideal scenario:

 

1.  I want to scan stuff from iMac using Scansnap ix500 and have it automatically added to my default inbox in Evernote (have premium account).

2.  In parallel, I wanted to have the PDF added to a document management system and a copy of the PDF stored on my NAS server

 

 

 

QUESTIONS:

Is there a benefit to keeping a copy of the PDF on my NAS?

 

Is it better to use Scansnap software to OCR or let Evernote OCR it?

 

Is there any benefit to having paperport or other DMS or can evernote do it all?

 

1. Always keep backups. My recommendation would be to put it into Evernote and plug in Time Machine (if you are on a Mac). It will take care of the rest. As an added precaution (here is where NAS comes in), you can occasionally select all your notes, right click, and "save attachments" to some other location.

 

2. It depends on your workflow. Me? I scan a bunch of documents, then I go through them with Adobe Acrobat Pro (the same software in ScanSnap), and then I add them into Evernote. This enables me to do the scanning all at once, it makes sure that all of the PDFs are searchable on my local drive using Spotlight (I prefer the HoudahSpot interface), and it ensures they actually get OCR'd -- Evernote will not OCR some PDFs (many of mine fall outside the parameters). In my tests, Evernote OCR is pretty good if you decide to use it.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=98

 

3. Evernote is pretty robust, and it ought to be fine for most people, but you can also use some kind of document management system if you would like. I am using DevonThink in addition to Evernote. You can point DevonThink to Evernote's folders on your local drive and it will index everything (so will Spotlight on the Mac), but you can also import things from Evernote and organize them as you would like. I think other software will do this as well, but to be honest, I am not big on organization. I prefer to do as little organizing as possible. My goal with DevonThink is to have new ways of sorting through my data, finding related things, etc. 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Is it better to use Scansnap software to OCR or let Evernote OCR it?

By the way, Evernote has certain limits you might want to think about, especially when it comes to PDFs.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=169

[confusedxx 0]

Thank you Grumpy Monkey

What would you suggest regarding best organization for scanned documents in evernote? I am planning to have insurance policy documents, mortgage document, car title, health insurance and life insurance stuff, all the stuff that I have in paper and never really need. Since I am unorganized these things are inproperly sorted into various boxes, file folders and can never be found when needed. So digitally I want to avoid having disorganzation like I do in my paper life

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thank you Grumpy Monkey

What would you suggest regarding best organization for scanned documents in evernote? I am planning to have insurance policy documents, mortgage document, car title, health insurance and life insurance stuff, all the stuff that I have in paper and never really need. Since I am unorganized these things are inproperly sorted into various boxes, file folders and can never be found when needed. So digitally I want to avoid having disorganzation like I do in my paper life

I am probably not the best person to ask. I prefer organization without organizing, and that requires a certain amount of tolerance for "messiness."

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=367

Of course, notebooks and tags are quite useful, and I am trying to incorporate them more into my workflow.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=437

However, when you can search for "intitle:record insurance" and find everything you want, I don't see the point of carefully tagging and notebooking everything. The one thing I will do for frequently referenced documents (not so much the insurance policy, but reference materials in my case) is to make an "index note" of note links to the various notes. A search for "intitle:index record" will pull up my index note linked to everything I need. Here are directions on making that.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=488

My "organization," if you can call it that, is quite flat (few hierarchies) and wiki-like (links to related items). I find that this works best for me, and the stuff that is worth spending time organizing gets organized, while the stuff that is there just in case I might ever need it is still able to be found with a search. Here are some of the advanced search options you might find useful.

http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23245321

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hi All

 

I am going to buy a scansnap ix500.  My plan is to become paperless and archive all important docs.

 

I have been reading that if I use Scansnap to create PDF files with OCR then Evernote will not ocr the documents, but will use the ocr embedded into the pdf, correct?

 

Is there a sample workflow and set of tools that you would recommend for my ideal scenario:

 

1.  I want to scan stuff from iMac using Scansnap ix500 and have it automatically added to my default inbox in Evernote (have premium account).

2.  In parallel, I wanted to have the PDF added to a document management system and a copy of the PDF stored on my NAS server

 

 

 

QUESTIONS:

Is there a benefit to keeping a copy of the PDF on my NAS?

 

Is it better to use Scansnap software to OCR or let Evernote OCR it?

 

Is there any benefit to having paperport or other DMS or can evernote do it all?

 

1.  I keep the original scans of important docs on my hard drive as well as in Evernote.  I also backup my local Evernote database on a daily basis as well as the documents that reside on my hard drive.  IMO, redundancy is a good thing, when it comes to backing up & accessing important things.  That whole not having all my eggs in one basket thing.

 

2 & 3.  I have used Paperport but not the indexing part.  I just use the UI to scan, organize & stack documents on my hard drive.  IMO & IME, I don't want or need every word on every page for all my documents OCR'd & indexed.  In fact, I think I really don't rely upon the EN PDF indexing much at all.  I'm very good at assigning files descriptive names & putting them in an appropriate folder on my hard drive.  When I put them in EN, the note title is defaulted to the descriptive file name.

 

 

 

BurgerNFries suggested using EN Titles with a format like YYYYMMDD Cox. The advantage to this is that probably minimizes the time it takes you to find the electronic version of a specific type of document (for example, Cox bills). However, what if you have other Cox documents, like contracts, or letters you sent to Cox complimenting them on their service.

Since I'm not a psychotic person and the average number of letters/contracts per year I have with Cox in the 30+ years of being their customer is less than one, the chances of multiple notes is slim. However, if there are more, we're talking about one or two at most in any given YYYYMM. And it would take about three seconds to find the one that is the bill.

OTOH, if I were a psychotic person who wrote 3 to 4 letters to Cox every day, then yes, this search would yield 100+ notes for Cox for a specific YYYYMM. But since I put bills in one notebook & letters in another, in that case, I would isolate my search to the bills notebook.

To take this a step further, it would be fairly easy to refine my search of the letters & contracts. Contracts would have the word 'contract' in the title & letters would have the word 'letter' in the note title. If I'm writing 3-4 letters each day, I can refine the search further by either searching on a date or date range (a couple of ways to do that) or subject (keyword). There are a lot of tools (notebooks, tags, descriptive titles & keywords) you can use with EN's search to quickly refine a search of many notes so that you can quickly find the one or two you may be looking for. Of my 60,000+ notes, I'd guess less than half have tags.

 

I *do* tend to rely upon the image OCR'ing mostly b/c when I'm on a roll researching or doing something, I will often take several screen caps & forget to go back & organize them, which includes adding a descriptive title.