PaperPort Pro 9 Office

PaperPort Pro 9 Office

PaperPort has come a long way in the document scanning and management arena. PaperPort Pro 9 Office now has built-in Portable Document Format support, so you will not need a copy of Adobe Acrobat to work with PDF files. PDF features include: scanning directly to PDF Image and Searchable Image Formats, annotations, and creating PDF files from existing text documents from applications such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel.

The batch processing features have been improved with this version of PaperPort. You can straighten a stack of pages, assign some common keywords to several items or resize a number of items. This is great software for managing document assembly.

The popular thumbnail desktop makes it easy for you to see your documents as if you were spreading the actual paper out on your desk. There also are several built-in viewers for many formats, such as TIFF, JPEG, PDF, Word, Excel and even PowerPoint files. PaperPort Pro 9, as in past editions, can handle various formats.

If you use a digital camera, PaperPort Pro also can download photos onto its desktop. If you have a TWAIN or Windows Image Acquisition-compatible camera, you can download them directly onto the PaperPort desktop. If not, you will have to use your camera’s software to download the photos, then drag and drop the photos to PaperPort.

PaperPort Pro 9 Office will work with both TWAIN or WIA scanners. PaperPort also works directly with many Visioneer scanners. Even if you can’t scan your documents or images onto the PaperPort desktop, you can import them into PaperPort.

Organizing files is still as easy as working with a Windows Explorer-like file structure to create folders and even color-code them according to your needs. Once the folders are created, you can simply drag and drop items on the PaperPort desktop into the folder or scan them directly to a folder. This is perhaps the easiest software to use in organizing your files on a single desktop or over your network.

The SimpleSearch tool makes it easy for everyone in your office to find any document instantly, searching by content, keyword or annotations.

FormTyper is another nifty feature in PaperPort Pro. Just as the name implies, you can scan in items such as insurance and billing forms to the PaperPort desktop then drag the form to the FormTyper program and it automatically will analyze the form and recognize the blank areas that are to be filled in. FormTyper identifies these blank fields and underlines them in color so you can enter your information. I put this feature to the test since I am always skeptical of such claims and, sure enough, FormTyper failed the test. FormTyper didn’t correctly identify my blank fields. PaperPort Pro also had to convert my scanned form into a PaperPort file (.max) before bringing it into the FormTyper program.

In addition to the PaperPort desktop, there is also ScanDirect, which lets you scan items and send them directly to PaperPort or other programs on your computer without first opening the PaperPort program. ScanDirect runs as a separate program from the Windows Start Menu and displays the ScanDirect bar. This is simply a shortcut to process your documents more quickly without having to always open PaperPort first.

You can directly launch the PageViewer. This is where you can display a full-sized view of your pages, make annotations, reduce, enlarge and rotate your documents or photos. If you can’t afford a fancy trial presentation software such as Sanction or TrialDirector, the PageViewer could offer you a cheaper alternative.

If you can use Windows programs, then you can pick up PaperPort fairly easy. It’s also easy on the accounting department, as it’s an affordable product for those who can’t shell out the big bucks for more expensive document management programs.

ScanSoft Inc.
(978) 977-2000

www.scansoft.com

Price: $199.99

Windows 98/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP

Reviewed by Milton Hooper, a litigation support specialist in Macon, Ga.

Aug/Sep '03 Issue

PROS
Great way to create and work with PDF files. A cheaper way to manage your documents and images.

CONS
The FormTyper feature doesn’t work and is a disappointment.

VERDICT
If you want an economical way to work with PDF files, this is your answer. I recommend it.