At the office, we have great custon-built scanning software that Dave built. It's worked flawlessly for 3 years now .. and aside from the fact that the TIFF files it makes are a bit bigger than they need to be (hin, hint Dave) … it's grrreat.
I'm looking for something now to use at home that is just as easy to use. This is not rocket science .. so I'm surprised that no company has yet produced software that does this elegantly. If you know of one .. please leave a comment.
The crieteria for a quick and easy scanning solution:
- Easy to use
- Really, really easy – this means that there is one button "scan" and perhaps a menu to define options such as resolution or turn on duplex, etc.
- Stores the files in folders in the OS (or FTP, I suppose) rather than a proprietary database
- Provised optional annotation or indexing of files .. with either a database (ODBC connection preferred) or a text/XML file that is stored locally or on a network drive
- Inexpensive. This is not ricket science .. so we shouldn't pay for rocket science.
- Stores files efficiently – in TIFF or .pdf
- Easy to use .. and really fast.
What I've found so far:
edrawer - personal version is inexpensive .. but I can't download a demo .. and their website is so poorly designed it makes me wonder about their skills at making usable software. I can't tell where the files are stored, but it looks like ley are ina database. I don't want my files trapped in a database in 10 years. I want them in the OS — in hierarchies of folders. They won't be trapped when the scanning software company goes out of business and my software won't work in Windows 2015 .. or Windux .. or Mac OS XV.
PaperMaster. hmm .. looks enticing,, but again .. where are the files?
SinmpleIndex "the best value in scanning software" .. sores files in folders. Inexpensive. Downloaded the demo. Scans a few images just fine .. then .. crash .. over and over ..
If you want to make sales .. then make sure your demo works.
Douxplorer is a "document managerment systerm." It works. But it stores the files in the database .. which has to live on your hard drive .. unless you pay for the professional version (n which case you can store the "library" (databse) on a server or shared folder.
InfoThek Docudex is the winner so far .. as it seems to do everything I want .. and it's developed elegantly. I'm going to test it for a while to see if I can make it work well.
