I Did A Bunch Of Scanning Today

I got a new scanner a week ago.

I'm still using it quite a bit, with a lot of experimentation on settings and saving files to try and get exactly what I want, both to preserve documents, records, and to do it reasonably efficiently.

The interfaces for it are many, since each application has it's own little ability to get a scan.

The one I was using today, with pretty good success, was OmniPage Professional 16. Once I got the settings right. For a while I was scanning handwritten stuff and it kept flipping the documents, upside down, sideways, etc. So after doing a whole notebook, I checked the settings and there's a way of turning that off. But you want it on for lots of things, so it will just automatically right things. Which it does effectively when it comes to printed words.

Then I was experimenting with the PDF settings. I'd never made a PDF before where you could highlight the words and copy them if you wanted. (I guess I made one nearly a week ago, but a bad one with the crummy scanner interface that came with the scanner -- Lexmark.) You'd almost think that a scanner company would want the greatest software to go out with their equipment instead of some dimwitted crap like you get. But that's beside the point.

The OmniPage will probably be my scanner interface of choice. I got VueScan, which is great in many ways, but somehow it doesn't detect the Automatic Document Feeder reliably. The OmniPage never failed once.

Once things are scanned (and in some cases a PDF file is made of a collection) the originals I shred or throw away. Eventually I'll be down to two pieces of paper in the house: my birth certificate and of course toilet paper. You wouldn't want to wipe with a PDF!