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| Paperless Office Network Edition 2.1 | Document Management |
| Still waiting
for a completely paperless office? Well, it may be a long wait. In the meantime, if you
have to scan and share large volumes of documents, take a look at the Paperless Office
Network 2.1 from Computhink. Although not as well known as some of its competitors, this powerful, multi-user documents management program comes with strong image manipulation tools and an excellent storage and retrieval system that can make a big dent in your paper pile. I first encountered Computhink's Paperless Office (the single-user version) several years ago. I quickly became a big fan of its easy installation and user-friendly interface, which creates an electronic filing system based on icons such as cabinets, drawers and folders. However, the version I worked with lacked full-text indexing, imported only graphic files and had no network capability. All of these shortcomings have been remedied in this latest release, which does, however, require Windows 95 or higher on the desktop. Perhaps the strongest feature of 2.1 is the new full-text search engine. Xerox's TextBridge turns scanned images into text, which can then be searched. A Centura Software 32-bit relational database finds and retrieves documents based on indexing by keywords, dates, document types or several other fields. Paperless Office can also import documents from any Windows application (including e-mail, fax or Web documents) and use images from any TWAIN- or ISIS-compliant scanner. Additional features include annotation functionality for adding electronic sticky notes, text and drawn objects to documents, and an image viewer for scaning, importing, retrieving or indexing documents. With these tools, you draw lines and shapes; add text, OLE objects and highlighted areas; move and copy portions of images; and adjust almost any image parameter, including brightness, contrast and dithering. The Paperless Office uses a set of modules called desks to divide image- scanning, retrieval and storage functions. Accounts can be set up with specific user rights. A user can be an administrator, a scan operator or someone who just has permission to print. You can even create rights for individual folders rather than users. The Paperless Office also uses workflow areas called queues that hold documents until the appropriate user acts on each of them. The program stores documents in a hierarchical-folder manner, and you can display the contents of any level via a query. If you import or scan documents into the Capture Desk and send those files to the index queue, the index/quality control desk lets you retrieve documents from the index queue and create folder assignments, field names, keywords and free-text document notes. The network version has automatic document-feeder support and a rework queue that lets you add pages to documents, re-scan pages or make other changes. The only drawback here is lack of batch queuing; documents must be indexed one at a time. With its modular approach to document management and similarity in many ways to the user interface of LaserFiche or Keyfile, many new users need some time to get used to Paperless Office. Those not used to using a character-based document management system, however, will have no problem with this approach to controlling a high volume of images. The new search capability and ability to handle a multitude of file formats, as well as strong workflow and security features, make this program an attractive solution for both small workgroups and entire firms. |
Computhink (800) 98-THINK www.computhink.com Windows 95, 98, NT $2,869 (5 users) Reviewed by Tom O'Connor, attorney, consultant and author, CourtLink, Bellevue, Wash. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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