Document scan, OCR and document storage question

[hawkdrver 0]

Probably an eye roller but I'm still trying getting my head around the evernote architecture.

I am in the middle of converting to a paperless workflow for both personal and business applications and have been using the iBook "paperless" by David Sparks as a guide.  He mentions using a scansnap scanner to scan directly to evernote since it does OCR automatically.  There are several other ways to do this, and I personally prefer doing OCR as a batch later, given the extra processing time involved per page, but it made me curious if scanning directly to evernote would limit me in accessing the documents from outside evernote.  I have had bad experiences before with committing data to proprietary applications so my plan A has been to send my scanned data to a NAS RAID array and have certain data also saved redundantly on the cloud.   Big picture question is, how would scanning directly to evernote significantly differ from my plan A?

Thanks!

[gazumped 11,698]

Hi.  Can't really give you a comprehensive list of differences,  but suffice it to say that after some years, and quite a few scans, I also scan to file and then batch OCR and import to Evernote.  I believe a lot of experienced users here do the same.

There's no physical difference in the process - both give you a PDF file inside a standard note.  In my case I use 'smart' titles for my documents with date/ source/ content keywords so having the files sent to a folder means I can edit details as necessary as well as OCR.  I do think that scan first / OCR later gives a faster overall process.

When you say "accessing the documents from outside evernote" I'm not sure what you have in mind.  Something I have to investigate now is the possibility,  given EN's integration with Drive,  that I'll be moving my scans to external storage and linking to them from Evernote;  initially I thought this would mean that I could start an 'IT' note and link to all my IT related scans from there.  But then if the same file refers to issues which could also be productivity and paper-free related,  saving that file to Evernote would allow me to search for whatever terms are mentioned in the file + my title / tag additions.  So not all files are Drive candidates... If you need separate access though,  YMMV.

(Files in Evernote though are stored as part of the database.  It's not possible to get at them without opening Evernote first.)

[CalS 5,281]

On 6/14/2016 at 4:07 AM, hawkdrver said:

 I have had bad experiences before with committing data to proprietary applications

With EN Windows you can do a search for all PDFs using resource:application/pdf.  You can then Ctrl-A to select all the notes, then right click and select Save Attachments to copy all your PDFs to a folder on your PC.  Easy to get all your PDFs out if you want.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

On 6/14/2016 at 4:07 AM, hawkdrver said:

 I have had bad experiences before with committing data to proprietary applications so my plan A has been to send my scanned data to a NAS RAID array and have certain data also saved redundantly on the cloud.   Big picture question is, how would scanning directly to evernote significantly differ from my plan A?

While I put almost all of my PDFs in Evernote, I don't directly scan to Evernote:

1. I prefer to rename the PDF file prior to importing, so the EN Note and PDF attachment have the same, meaningful name
2. For most PDFs, I delete the PDF after dropping in the EN Import folder
3. For very important PDFs, I archive a copy to my NAS RAID system.

So, obviously if you scan directly to Evernote then it is a big change to your plan A -- you don't have any PDFs on your NAS, nor in the cloud backup.

[DTLow 5,736]

On June 14, 2016 at 2:07 AM, hawkdrver said:

... curious if scanning directly to evernote would limit me in accessing the documents from outside evernote.  I have had bad experiences before with committing data to proprietary applications so my plan A has been to send my scanned data to a NAS RAID array and have certain data also saved redundantly on the cloud.   Big picture question is, how would scanning directly to evernote significantly differ from my plan A?

I scan directly to Evernote via an import folder or camera, and rely on Evernote's built in OCR feature.  I don't want to do any "OCR as a batch later", and I'm not clear on the benefits of external OCR

I save the hardcopy for a couple of days and then discard it when I verify it can be accessed in a Evernote.

Access to my notes outside of Evernote.
My backup procedures include a daily incremental enex/html export to a cloud drive

Redundancy
- I have the master note set on the Evernote servers, with a copy on my Mac and iPad.
- I have the exported notes on a cloud drive 
- The Evernote servers also have note history, as does my iCloud export.
- And finally, I have weekly full export (enex)

 

[hawkdrver 0]

Thanks guys.  Exactly the information I was looking for.  Cleared up all my questions. 

Apologies for not wording my question a little better, but  as I am starting to realize,  I haven't quite figured out yet exactly how I am going to put Evernote to the best use for my purposes.  Very cool that it's as flexible as it is, but a big learning curve for someone used to more rigid architecture. 

Thanks again. 

 

 

 

 

 

[CalS 5,281]

You are welcome. 

[eric99 986]

When I have to scan multiple documents to notes with the same tag-set, I first open evernote and select the required tags in the search filter to provide the required context.

Then I scan directly to Evernote via an import folder. The previously selected tags are then automatically added to the imported notes :-)