PaperPort v11

Some software screams to be used.  PaperPort is like that.  It dubs itself a "paper management system," but it behaves like a personal secretary.  And once you have one, you won't wanna give it back.

The program sits between your scanner and computer, sending scans wherever you may want them - out to a PDF file, off through email, converted to text for a word processor or ready for editing as a graphic.  And like any good secretary, PaperPort keeps track of every snippet it's ever seen so you won't have to.

Efficient it is, though not the prettiest thing to grace a desktop, Version 11 is new, but ScanSoft's efforts seem to have gone into tweaking the engine, leaving the interface looking dull as dirt.

Get over it; looks ain't everything.  And you're gonna love this gray lady anyway.

Shoot location stills and PaperPort rushes them from your camera to your email.  Scan documents and PaperPort turns them into editable text.  Add notes, comments or highlights to anything.  That's especially helpful on location when notes and arrows and highlights have to be added to almost everything.

Here's something I like at lot.  Scan a form into PaperPort and fill in the blanks on your computer.  And, of course, send it right back out again.  Very cool. 

I also like that PaperPort can catalog any text file or graphic on a computer so it can find it later.

How good is it on location?  Not bad at all.  Text scans are fast, although OCR (Optical Character Recognition) isn't perfect.  Still, it's close enough for most field work.  It did reasonably well on a yellowed old script, although it had some trouble managing screenplay indents and ferreting out the meaning of badly grayed words.  (For better OCR, the program tells me, use its big brother, OmniPage.  I'll get to that soon enough.)

There's no free lunch.  Many of PaperPort's myriad tools are buried deep - you'll have to dig to enjoy its juiciest morsels.  But if your workday includes filling forms, sending photos from one location to another or digitizing anything, this program is worthy of your toolkit. 

PaperPort v11 is produced by
Nuance Communications, 1 Wayside Road, Burlington, MA 01803, 781-565-5000.
http://www.nuance.com/paperport/ 
The "Standard" version has a MSRP of $99, the "Professional" is $199. 
It can be found at other outlets online for less.

Paperport Details