12-01-2010, 12:46 PM

Hello All:

By way of introduction, I am an attorney/solo practitioner who recently made the "switch" in a very big way ... iMac, MacAir, iPad, iPhone, with MobileMe. Once I get myself situated, I am switching my whole office.

As part of the technology upgrade, I invested in a ScanSnap S1500M, with the intent to go paperless (to the extent possible). I really like the scanner -- small, fast, effective -- but the ScanSnap Manager software leaves a lot to be desired. The scanner comes with Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 and, by default, the ScanSnap will create searchable PDFs.

But when I scan, I am forced to "prename" the document (either by date or a set name with number extension) and have the document placed in a set file location ("Scans"). I could probably live with the latter, but it is really annoying to have to go in after every scan, find it and then rename the document. At a minimum, I would like the ability to name the document BEFORE ScanSnap saves it as something else. It would be even better if I could write rules that would do the filing for me.

Best real example of what I would like to do ... Scan old paper files, have the software name the document (or at least pause so that I can name it) and then drop it into the correct folder and/or subfolder.

So here are my questions:

1. Am I simply missing something? Do I already have the capability to do this, with ScanSnap Manager or Adobe Acrobat Pro 8, and I just do not know or understand how to use my existing software?

2. Does the new Adobe Acrobat X Pro include this functionality?

3. I have read reviews of four different "file organizer" programs specifically designed for Mac -- Hazel, DevonThink, Yep, and Paperless -- and played around with DevonThink yesterday, but honestly, I am already feeling a bit overwhelmed by my "switch" and I would prefer to find a simple solution for now.

4. Is there an AppleScript that would work here?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Switch

12-01-2010, 01:59 PM

Found a simple way to "pause" the process in order to name the file before saving ... I changed the setting on ScanSnap Manager to "set the marked test as a keyword." At least with my tests so far, the document is fully searchable by keywords in the text. I can also set and change file locations.

* * * * *

But I am still looking for a software/application solution to automate that process. I have roughly 100,000 documents in 5 dozen boxes, from 20 years of the practice of law. I would like a program that takes the document, creates meaningful file names (e.g., "Complaint" or "Deposition"), and then stores that document in the right spot (Client-Smith, in Matter-Jones). Maybe I am asking too much, but I thought I would ask at the outset of the process before I got halfway through and found something better,

Thanks.

12-03-2010, 12:25 PM

Just trying to contribute ... in my conversation with myself

I am using Hazel with my scanner and, at least preliminarily, I LOVE this application. It lets me write rules, which take the documents that I scan and redirects them to the appropriate folder. Still playing around with it, but pretty amazing so far ... I scan a document (Snapscan), name it, and woosh ... off it goes to the correct folder. The only thing I have not been able to do yet is add keywords at the "naming" stage of the process ... At this point, if I want to add "keywords" (and that may not even be necessary with OCR recognition), I have to go back in after filing and add the words.