by The tenacity of paper is amazing. Given that electronic screens permeate our lives and a whole generation has grown up with the Internet in their homes, it seems that paper should be obsolete by now. Yet we still get account statements in the mail and little strips of paper every time we make a purchase (Apple Stores notwithstanding). Mariner Software’s Paperless 2.2.1 can’t prevent those papers from drifting into your life, but it can hasten their trip to the recycling bin.
Paperless couples with a Fujitsu ScanSnap or an Image Capture-compatible document scanner to digitize things like receipts and business cards (TWAIN devices are not supported). Once you scan the document, its image is processed using optical character recognition (OCR) to create a searchable archive. Finally, thanks to Paperless’s built-in smarts, it attempts to parse the document so that it can fill in metadata with information like dates and dollar amounts.
Paperless’s design and features hit most of the right notes, but it’s not all harmony.
Paperless uses a three-column window to display your document library. The left column provides access to sets of items called collections, and default collections filter your library by date ranges like ‘this week’ or ‘last month’. It also offers up items by type if you want to scan through all your contacts.
Paperless provides a space for two flavors of custom collections. The standard custom collection is essentially a folder that holds whatever items you drag into it. Smart collections work like iTunes’ smart playlists: You choose the criteria to search for, and Paperless places the matching items into the collection. Frustratingly, a smart collection can’t match on OCR text despite the fact that Paperless’s search bar does include results from that text. This seems like a major missed opportunity to organize automatically.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
