Comments on: Organizing digitally scanned data

By: John V

John V — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:20:52 +0000

Erin,

In scanning manuals with thin pages, does the snapscan ‘bleed through’ the print on the other side of the page, making it hard to read? How do the scans come out?

By: Sarah L

Sarah L — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 04:46:37 +0000

There's also Journler for mac. http://journler.com/ While it sounds like you should be writing your diary in it, (and a number of reviews seem to focus solely on that function), in reality it's also a very nice organiser for files. It even opens PDFs in the internal viewer almost instantaneously so you have immediate access to the content of your pdf.

By: Julian Schrader

Julian Schrader — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:29:35 +0000

I found a great solution for the mac a few weeks ago: http://yepthat.com/

YEP organises PDFs in an iPhoto-like way, allows you to tag them etc.—but the killer feature: It even works with a scanner to import paper stuff into PDF.

Now that’s great—put your papers into your scanner, tag the PDFs and you’re done…

By: Phillip

Phillip — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:41:01 +0000

Some great tips. Just as the huge skip arrives on my drive for a big life laundry session (we are vlearing our roof space over the next week). I’ll be able to get rid of some extra things with your tip of downloading the PDF version of the manual.

Heres to a clutter free life!!

By: bret

bret — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:42:36 +0000

erin,

doesn’t google desktop do something like this for windows?

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:24:11 +0000

bret … that’s a good alternative if you have a Mac and a full version of Acrobat. Unfortunately, I don’t know if there is a Spotlight-type program for the PC. Anyone??

By: bret

bret — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:19:37 +0000

I know that DevonThink is very cool but lately i’ve been scanning with my cheapo scanner to Acrobat 8 Pro then using the ‘recognize ocr’ feature it has. Then I name the pdf ‘washing_machine_whirlpool_manual.pdf’. Now, I can search in Spotlight for any text in the pdf or if I want the manual proper I can just search for ‘whirpool’. So, using this metadata, I can through all my pdf’s in one bucket and not have to worry about organizing them…

By: Marilyn

Marilyn — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:17:08 +0000

I have to confess that most of my manuals are in a junk drawer in the kitchen. I like the idea of using a magazine file for them. I don’t think I’m ready to do .pdf’s yet.

By: dana

dana — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:02:08 +0000

I put my manuals (none were too thick) in those page protectors that hold up to 25 pgs each and clipped them in a BIG 3 ring binder – voila! can flip thru and find the coffee maker vs the ice cream machine, etc. The act of flipping thru also reminds me to purge as needed.