I couple of weeks ago, I did a review on the latest version of Paperport v12 Professional. I was reviewing the product as anyone would if they were looking to apply it in the corporate environment or at home; what did it do? How did it do it and was it easy enough to use.
During the process of reviewing and dissecting the program, going through it’s various functions, I thought about all the programs I’ve ever used and does what Paperport does… With everything that Paperport does, could it be replaced it something else- an alternative?
The answer is YES.
One of the most attractive things about Paperport is that it attempts to put everything at your finger tips when the program starts. The tree listing of items on the left with the thumbnail images on the right; action option for those items are located at the bottom.
But my alternative to Paperport is very similar; it doesn’t have all the bells whistles, but I think we can account for what it doesn’t have right our of the box [download].
My alternative to Paperport is XNVIEW; it’s a free program for personal or educational use, but if you’ve to buy it- it’s an awesome value and all future updates are free; you can’t beat that.
And so the first question should be what does it look like?
Well that answer depends on you; there are several options for the program layout.
For me, I chose to make it look almost like Paperport, excluding the toolbar at the bottom.
XNVIEW has the functions, for emailing images, documents and pretty much everything else Paperport does. Obviously, the interface GUI is slightly different, but is not a mirror- this is an alternative…
The program offers a way to assign external programs to send the items to. So if you want to use your own editor or OCR or whatever you can do that and this really the strong point of XNVIEW. While XnView handles over 400 file formats natively, you can add more.
And while Paperport has ignored Thunderbird users for years on the issue of being able to email items using Paperport and Thunderbird; XnView does this with no problem. That’s right, this free program has out paced a commercial product on something so simple.
I haven’t found any thing so far that I couldn’t adjust for in XnView, coming from Paperport.
One of Paperport’s strong suits is the scanning in of documents. Being able to input/scan the documents and then organize them; XnView handles this just fine. You can scan in documents one at a time or you can handle the documents with batch scanning [scanning to TIFF or PDF].
Where Paperport uses a proprietary format, MAX, to handle their files to ‘stack’ images, this is a custom format and they only work in Paperport. I’ve never agreed with this option. In order for others to use MAX files the other party has to install a viewer. And while this may be the case, MAX files are not standard like a PDF file.
One of the things I like about XnView is that is uses TABS. They’re used to open new images, scan items or show new stuff. You can have open many images and still be able to browse the tree on the right- it’s a more productive GUI, in my opinion.
Paperport has some limited functions on image editing, but Paperport really can’t compare with some of the freeware alternatives right now. My suggestion for tools for editing images inside XnView is PhotoFiltre [there are many others], it has so many options for managing images or altering images. It covers just about everything you would want to do with an image.
One of the strong suits of Paperport is the integration of their OCR option. With Paperport you can select an TIFF and click WORD or Notepad and the image is OCR’d and placed in a text file of your choice. There’s nothing like this coming in to XnView, but there’s alternative; it’s called SIMPLE OCR. Documents can be loaded in to it and OCR’d with little effort.
Pages: 1 2
XNVIEW is nice but it misses (as does SOHO DOX) a crucial feature of paperport, the ability to move around thumbnails and thus clump certain documents into a certain location/group like what can be done with the windows desktop.
Perhaps, but the 'stacking' you refer to cold easily be
compared to a stacked TIF or a single PDF [which XnView supports].
Thumbnails can still be dragged to a new folder and if I've to look for
stuff in alphabetical order [...] that's not too bad considering the
money someone could be saving.
I appreciate it…
Later,
Larry
In PaperPort you can rearrange the physical location within any folder desktop, so that you have a physical view that works for you. I mean you can slide each thumbnail to a specific physical spot on the desktop (like on the Windows desktop), and it will remain at that location. You were referring to stacking documents from several documents into a single document.
Do your alternatives work with Windows 7? I am migrating to Windows 7 on our 3 computers. Have PaperPort 11. It works great on Vista but not on Windows7. And PaperPort 12 is a terrible application from all I have read. Thanks and great articles and information
I am using paperport Version 10 on windows 7 64bit (ultimate home). The trick is; after install, go into the paperport install folder (usually c:programfiles (x86)scansoftpaperport) and change the properties of ALL the exe files in the folder to XP sp3 compatible. (right click on the exe and see properties, then check box XPsp3 compatible.) works like a charm with canon scanners. If you have version 11 of PP either upgrade to 12 or downgrade to 10. vers.11 very buggy. So far ver 10 seems to be the most bug-free.
Yes it does- I'm using it now. Right now.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks,
L. Henry Jr.
http://www.lehsys.com
@Joseph O
With regards to “clump certain documents into a certain location/group”
I found that XnView can do that too. If you look above the directory
tree on the left there are three buttons. One of those is a categories
button.
Clicking on it shows three ways of organizing files – by category,
rating, and label (same as Thunderbird’s [Important, Work, Personal,
etc]).
Right-clicking a file allows you to easily set the latter two for each
file.
Categories can be added to the list. After doing so…
Select a file, go to
View -> Set categories…
Check off the categories you want the file assigned to (any number of
categories).
So now one can duplicate the PaperPort category tree without actually
creating folders, adding folders, or moving files.
Pretty cool.
Y’know, even though I’ve had PaperPort 11 on my machine for quite
some time I just realized that it won’t thumbnail or read a single
solitary PDF file that it didn’t create itself. Confirmed on two
different computers.
Not sure why but that caused me to look for alternatives and finding
this article. Who knew I already had the tools I needed.
Thanks Larry,
Marc
P.S. The three buttons above the folder tree I mentioned are not in
the screen shot provided on this page but in the program itself
(I’m running XnView 1.97.4).
Marc
Hey thanks…
while PaperPort is a great program… XnView is very close to
everything a person might need.
Thanks for the information.
Until next time,
LEHenryJr
LEHSYS.com
Glad to see there is a possible alternative to Paperport. I have been with the product since about version 5
and in my opinion every version has got more buggy and crashes more. In my experience ever since Nuance bought the product its been all down hill. I bought version 12 thinking they had ironed out all the bugs how wrong i was. It can't handle large amounts of images the pdf viewer crashes frequently twain drivers don't work anymore despite updating the scanner driver. Do yourself a favour and don't buy it.
Hi there, do you have an alternative to Paperports stacking / unstacking PDFs? I find this feature really handy for exampling printing the last page in a signed document, signing it, scanning it, then combining it back into the original PDF – saves time and paper.
XnView support TIFF and PDF stacking while your scanning the documents in… I don't know of an option to combine them after the fact, BUT other programs do that and it's free.
Just trying to help…
Until next time,
LEHenryJr
Unique to PP is the stacking and unstacking of PDF documents in thumbnail view. I have found no other program that allows this.
Agreed. The native ability of PaperPort to take the PDFs and be able to stack and unstack them on-the-fly is a very useful tool, but I recognized that what I was really doing was grouping the PDF's and then decide to establish a folder, label the folder and then place all my PDF's in that folder… it's close, but not as convenient.
Thanks for your comments.
Until next time,
LEHenryJr
FileCenter stacks and unstacks and the search function actually works. I downloaded it because I saw a reference to it on this forum. So far I have found it to be the only real alternative to PaperPort that I have found and I am a longtime user.
At least for me this functionality is vital, thus I have not found a true PP alternative despite looking for several months. I'm moving to Win 7 now on one machine, my main one, so I'm not exactly sure what I'll do next. PP has not been stable for me since v9 so I'm still using it almost without flaw. I may try XP compatability mode with Win7.
I agree that this is the *one* killer feature which keeps me using PaperPort. Other than that, it is a bloated, buggy mess which has not improved in years. I am still bitter that I paid $99 for the v12 "upgrade". What a waste.
If any other program will simply allow me to stack/unstack PDFs, tag them with keywords, search across tags/content and organize into folders, I would buy it in an instant… as long as it is more stable and less buggy than PP, which is a very low bar to reach.
Since this page is near the the top in search results, which was why I viewed this first… thought I might as well add my findings to it. For stacking/unstacking, a free/near free alternative is PDF Sam, which is at http://www.pdfsam.org/ — It has "visual document composer" and "visual reorder," which does the page reordering in a way similar to how Paperport does it. It also can split/extract pages from one PDF and allow you to merge it to another. All that package is missing, of course, is the searching and OCR.
Just tried out the PDFsam alternative. Works very well – thanks.
I've also just discovered you CAN stack documents inside XnView:
1. Copy the address of the folder you are working in (only if you want to do the whole task in the same folder)
2. Click on Create > Multi-Page file
3. Paste into Directory field
4. Click on Add
5. Paste into Name field and press <enter>
6. Select the files you require
7. Click Add
8. Click OK
9. Click Create
And that's it.
I haven't find a way to unstack documents insde XnView.
Another program that allows scanning to PDF w/OCR and then allows you to stack & unstack pages is FileCenter. http://www.lucion.com/filecenter-overview.html
That's a good option – thanks for pointing it out. I love the OCR right after scanning. I don't like the GUI they've, but I like the tagging options, and I also think this application is driven more to just documents – I'd like to see more of a similar document recognition and face recognition for photos.Thanks for your comments. Until next time,LEHenryJr
I have a few beefs that I hope can be countered with convenient answers:
1) Visioneer Scanners are often bundled with PaperPort along with OneTouch, which is a simple application that allows for detection of documents in a scanner, automatically scanning them and then sending them to a predefined directory in PaperPort. I see there is an "Autoscan on document insertion" feature under the scan menu but, is there a way for XnView to run as a service (or somehow run in the background) and offer a OneTouch-like feature?
2) Is there any way to associate the "Send by Email" with Outlook, such as the way Paperport does?
Cameron,Personally, I don't know of one, but you've a good question on the 'autoscan function', and it could be addressed by visiting the XnView support forum. Link:http://newsgroup.xnview.com/The other, I'm not quite sure about directly, but it sounds like your searching for a 'send to' option for eMail. Windows has the option to 'send to' mail recipient with the default mail client, which could be Microsoft Outlook.I hope this helps… Until next time,Larry Henry Jr.
Larry,
Thank you so much for posting this excellent review and all the additional comments.
I've been on the lookout for some time now for an alternative to PaperPort. I've been a loyal user for well over 10 years…, like so many others. Their latest version 12, PaperPort R.I.P., as it is now called has not only antagonized many loyal users, but also has given us a good idea of the hopeless support that Nuance is "offering".
I'll post my experience with the adaptation process for XNView.
Kind regards from rainy (for once) Madrid (Spain),
Ian Hinton
I hope this helps…
I can't find an exact replacement, but there's some that seem to be trying… If I find anything else; I'll be posting it here.
Have a nice day…
Until next time,
Larry Henry Jr.
First, the good news: I think I found something that's pretty darn close — at least, it's good enough for me that I switched over. The bad news: It's more expensive than Paperport itself, and is tied to a particular scanner model. I wanted to upgrade my scanner anyway, so that helped too.
Behold: The Fujitsu Scansnap S1500, with the bundled ScanSnap Organizer. Check out the manual at http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/IMAGE/manual/p2w… and tell me that doesn't look familiar.
It doesn't provide a way to "stamp" the PDFs, but Fujitsu provides a free copy of Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard, which does have that ability. It also doesn't do searches per se, but the "Sort by date of Creation" actually works — and I use "X1 Enterprise Client", which is free and supports Windows XP, for all my PDF searching needs.
Thanks for the mention… Looks fascinating, but…
Happy Holidays!
Until next time,
Larry Henry Jr.
I've "rediscovered" some software that I´ve had for some time, but had hardly used, while I've been trying to get PaperPort to run properly these last years (with no success). It's called PDF995 and is chock full of features. It's available for free at http://www.pdf995.com although you have to put up with a sponsor page. It's a really complete package and covers a lot/most of the features we ex PaperPort users require. If you get tired of the sponsor page, you can pay for a low priced license to get rid of it: 9.95 $ – 19.95$, depending on what you want. I've finally payed for the license. I'm building up a quite flexible and powerful document center with this software plus some other items that have been mentioned on this site.
Hope this is useful and thanks to all.
I have been running a demo version of FileCenter and so far have found that it is a real alternative to PaperPort for in an office environment. The Professional version is around $200, but well worth it in a true paperless office. I have used PaperPort for many years and am happy to find a viable and professional alternative. Note: FileCenter's search function actually works! Stack and unstack works!
I just found that the other day, I was meaning to check it out.
Thanks for reminding me.
Have a nice day…
Until next time,
Larry Henry Jr.
I'm looking for a good pdf editor to replace Paperport. I found Filecenter does an excellent job of managing my files, but is lacking two key pdf editing features that I can't live without. I really need the eraser and cut/paste feature PP provided. If anyone has found an editor with these features, please let me know. Thanks!
I just wrote this the other day… http://www.lehsys.com/2011/01/top-5-reasons-why-i…
It has some options for PDF editing; should help you.
I hope you have a nice day!
Until next time,
Larry Henry Jr.
Fantastic article and chock full of GREAT resources! MANY Thanks for putting this together. I have used PAperPort since it's earliest version and have grown to hate it more and more with its useless support and increasingly buggy code. I am beginning to believe that Nuance (the company that makes PaperPort) purposely writes disabling code into the software so that you are forced to buy the "new" edition. Over the years, I have spent hundreds of dollars and hours to keep it working, and I have finally decided to give it up. Your advice makes it possible for the first time. Again, MUCH THANKS!
I've been using Paperport since Version 7 and am now on 11 with Windows 7. Suddenly its started not to work, nothing changed (apart from Windows upgrades). I've now upgraded to 14 but if this goes the same File Centre will be my next port of call.
I have not tried File Centre, but lots of people says it's good; I may have to give it a round of tests.
Later,
Larry
I haven't even tried the alternatives yet but from a little research I'd say that FileCenter is the closest match to PaperPort except it looks way more up to date both in its GUI and it's ease of use. I am purchasing it now. The only thing I might miss about PaperPort is the colored folders and the FormTyper which automatically converts any PDF into a fillable form PDF. I'm not sure yet if FileCenter has a similar capability, if it does then I will be 100% pleased with the change.
I have PaperPort 12 in my Windows 7 64-bit laptop with 4GB of memory and that program is horrendous at lock ups and causing the whole computer to lag at times. The entire program will go into Not Responding for completely random reasons. One time it's cause I moved a file, another time is cause I renamed one, then because I changed the color of a folder, then because the scanner wasn't connected, etc. It is absolutely unpredictable when it will lock up, but it is fully predictable that it WILL lock up for whatever reason. As good as this program is, whoever programed it did not have their full attention on this project. Nuance has a controlling market share for non-enterprise users that need this type of system. If they don't get their act together they will quickly loose that market share. Good luck to them, I'm already switching. I don't care if FileCenter is more expensive or not. If it works as it is designed to then the price will be well worth it. Hopefully I won't eat my own words after I've tried it for a while.
File center is the closest once, but the user interface isn\’t there. Nuance doesn\’t have the market on performance and features; they have it on ease of use.
Thank you,
Larry Henry Jr. http://www.LEHSYS.com
I installed Paperport 12 and 12.1 on my laptop and desktop with windows 7.
can't get either to work. Constant lock ups, every thing you said is true. Don't waste your money if you are thinking of purchasing it!!
The long awaited alternative to paperport is EVERNOTE. Cloud based. Free for most users. Indexes everything. Works on your smartphone, and will use the camera to scan. Takes webclips, e-mails, even audio. AT LAST!
Evernote isn't even in the same category as PaperPort. Evernote is a clips taker; PaperPort is a document/image organizer. You can't compare the two on a playing field and I also believe your comment is a shameless plug for Evernote.
Thank you,
Larry Henry Jr.
LEHSYS.com
I use Paperport, but I'm moving more towards Evernote. Paperport is getting sluggish under it's own weight and bloat. Having been through server and workstation crashes I prefer the cloud for many (but not all) things now.
The ability to tap in and use from any mobile device with online connectivity is nice. Sure it is marketed as a clips taker, but you can save images and view pdfs. It may not do everything Paperport does yet, but I think it's a nice alternative to have.
I disagree. I think that while many people do use Evernote as a web clipper, that is only one of its surface level functions. You can use it to manage a whole library of documents. I haven't tried XNView, but I have tried sohodox and I found that Evernote's user interface (and especially the way it allows you to assign tags to documents by drag & drop, and also to select multiple tags) is far superior.
You all should know that Paperport 14 has just been released. The advertised benefit is link to the cloud, so called PaperPort Anywhere. Whether they will follow up with an Android or iPhone Paperport remains to be seen; I doubt it. However, they have updated all the internal system stuff for Win7 so it runs fast & I haven't had a crash in ca. 14 hr. of Win7 use.
I am a math tutor and have used Paperport quite successfully through 4 versions. The reason I stick with this program is because Paperport allows me to scan worksheets or pages of textbooks as B&W or color copies (rather than OCR docs) I can then EASILY select and delele either individual problems or full sections of problems and replace them with problems from another scanned page. I can edit diagrams from Geometry texts either adding text characters, line segments or rays, and use text boxes to insert comments on the sheets. In this way I have created a very useful library of handouts for my students. Once a file is fully edited, I can duplicate it as a PDF (a two second process) and store the file in an appropriate folder. I have one for Arithmetic, another for Algebra I, Algebra II, SAT Math, etc. If I wish to send these files to a student, I can easily drag the thumbnail to the Outlook email link at the bottom of the paperport desktop and Outlook will open with the document already attached. HOW convenient. There is NO other program that I know of that allows this sort of cut and paste editing.
I won\’t argue there. PaperPort does offer a great benefit over other applications in the same category, but as a replacement application that\’s offered; it\’s close.
Your time is appreciated…
Until next time,
Larry Henry Jr.
Great post! Both XnView and PhotoFiltre are splendid products that I've used for many years, I found XnView way back in '98 and still haven't found anything better! Extend PhotoFiltre with the plugin pack (http://www.photofiltre-studio.com /plugins/plugins-en.htm – bottom of page) . It's definitely worth the ~$50 upgrade to Studio which adds support for layers and more. As an aside, JRiver's Media Center (http://www.jriver.com/) is an good alternative as well but is NOT free. Media Center can handle practically any file format and supports custom tagging/keywords and more.
My recent post Select Freeware – Get the Best Free Stuff!
we're very happy with Filecenter in our small business home office, also after sales support is really fine .
thanks for all your input
HUB
FileCenter Pro… Hands down the winner.
Forget PaperPort. Nuance has let the people down, as evidenced on this site:
"Nuance PaperPort Hell – Revisited" http://futurelawyer.typepad.com/futurelawyer/2008…
I researched all the desktop file organizers, and FileCenter beats them all; even finder for Mac users
Most of the problem with everyone nowadays is simply sorting and organizing your existing files BEFORE you use an organizer. You must organize them / rename them properly (naming conventions) and categorically place them in the appropriate folders.
No file organizer will do this for you.
Then, once you get your existing files finished, you need to decide a work flow that accepts new documents in the form of scans and such. If you do not have a work flow, your downloaded file organizer will simply be a reflection of your mind. Your files are your unique items. Watching a video on how others do it will only serve to give ideas.
Just my opinions. But FileCenter is the best because it is not a database like PaperPort. It is simply a very nice and customizable "portal" that overlays the Explorer window and allows vertical or horizontal double and triple three windows, with a view window; and even a preview pop up window. It handles ANY file type.windows
Their OCR and direct scan is really pretty accurate, and for those tough scans or PDFs, use something like ABBYY or Adobe. Also, get into the habit of converting all of your docs into searchable PDFs. That is the way to go. And there's so much more, and tons of videos and tutorials.
Test drive it. You will never go back. I am a very satisfied business entrepreneur using FileCenter.
Magnificent information. Definitely anticipating reading more. Thanks.
i find nuance very anti customer. Their prodcuts are not great and they seem to think that m-f /8-5 is an acceptable window to field calls
My computer crashed, i cant reinstall because Ive exceeded my install limit (1). I am however free to call during normal business hours and politely ask that they grant me another.
My other issue w/ Nuance is that w/ each new version, they have moved more and more to the PRO version, which is another 50 or so dollars. Ive tolerated it to now, because it was installed. Now i have to choose. PP and nuance have gone the way of bank of america.
kind of disappointing , dragon looks interesting, but i know what to expect from the company…..
not upset, just moving on…..
of course like your website but you have to check the spelling on several of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to tell the truth nevertheless I will surely come back again.
Feel free to offer as much spelling and grammar checking as you'd like…
Later,
Larry
My recent post Uploading images to Facebook [easy]
Looks a great programme. But I cant seem to associate my Fuji Scansnap S1500. Any ideas please?
As long as the scanner is twain or wia compatible, you shouldn't have any issues; and of course you can always download the latest driver updates from Nuance via the scanner wizard.
I hope this helps…
Later,
Larry
My recent post Uploading images to Facebook [easy]
Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your content seem to be running off the screen in Opera. Im not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought Id post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Thanks
Thanks— just tested it in Opera; no problems found— maybe it’s your system.
I really appreciate it…
Later,
Larry