Wouldn’t you love to turn all your paper files into digital or electronic files? Honestly, aren’t you personally challenged by the mound of paper, personal and business, avalanching through your mail box and across your desk or kitchen table? I don’t have a secretary. I spend hours each month shuffling. Filing. How ’bout you?
When I was a kid, I watched my dad, overwhelmed by IRS forms each spring. He would huff and mutter, “Federal paperwork reduction act!”
He was an almost obsessive filer of documents. So was I, but I found a solution. It’s Nuance Software’s Paperport. They make Dragon – Naturally Speaking, too. They can help you convert paper to digital files.
Nuance’s software focuses on imaging and speech. PaperPort organizes paper and digital documents so simply it’s like a virtual backhoe. Manufacturers of printers and scanners, companies like Kodak and Brother, include ScanSoft PaperPort with their hardware. The federal government has tens of thousands of ScanSoft licenses across the United States.
Paper files are turned into PDF format with PaperPort, on the fly. There’s no reason to keep hard copies of most items. In today’s world, a faxed signature equals an original. Therefore, a scanned signature converted to PDF and e-mailed is accepted by nearly everyone. I can get original documents when I need them from my bank, the government, my vendors. The product manager at Nuance told me he wowed his mortgage banker by receiving an electronic mortgage application, dragging it to PaperPort, using the stack feature to assemble attachments from his digital files, filling in forms’ blanks through PaperPort, affixing a digital signature and returning the package via e-mail– all in under 15 minutes
When I came back from vacation last month, my desk sagged under a pile of work and incoming mail. I’d been gone several weeks. Faced with too much paper and too little time I felt overwhelmed. Nuance to the rescue.
I installed my new copy of PaperPort and their desk-top interface appeared. File-folder tree to the left and wide-open real estate on the right. I knew immediately how to use this program–it had the look and feel of Windows. Wizards walked me through hooking up my scanner, a simple flat-bed.
It was easy to read a set of how-tos that opened with the desktop. Did I want to scan documents? Edit and enhance images? Organize files? Assemble documents? Or another task?
Choosing scan, I felt a glow of hope. The documentation walked me through. In 10 minutes I was chipping away. Storing newly scanned documents — receipts, invoices, business letters, recipes — was no problem. PaperPort comes with embedded files for banking, insurance, photographs, receipts. Setting up personal files is easy as any Windows program. Drag and drop.
I bought a new all-in-one machine with an auto feed for documents. Now, in half an hour, I can manage, convert and file away a week’s mail and filing. I’m seeing my accountant tonight to do income taxes. I put together a spread sheet of business expenses in about an hour just from my PaperPort files that I kept up with all year. I don’t use an accounting program, I simply scan my receipts, invoices and so forth, title each, add key words like “2009 taxes” and “receipt from…”
There are other document conversion programs. Some are expensive. Many, hard to use. For me, PaperPort downsized thee large file cabinets and some desktop bins to two small keepers. It made scanning effortless with a frienldy interface. It converts text images to live text and made PDFs, fast becoming the Internet and electronic document standard, a snap.
PaperPort is available for under $200, but can also be a heck of a value if you’re in the market for a new printer or scanner and decide to buy one that includes PaperPort free. I’m not an easy sell – but this document conversion product converted me!
[...] Dump paper files and go digital [...]