Others who have had similar issues (based on Microsoft Technet and Microsoft Answers site) have reported that there was a folder in the Paperport initialization that caused the issue. More specifically, they found that it was a file in that directory, but the file type varied. Check the error in the Event Viewer (Control Panel All Control Panel Items Administrative Tools Event Viewer.lnk) Go to the Windows Logs and check the Application and System logs to find the details of the error. Hope this helps.
ScanSoft PaperPort 11 A way to uninstall ScanSoft PaperPort 11 from your computer ScanSoft PaperPort 11 is a computer program. This page holds details on how to remove it from your computer.
Answered on Dec 19, 2014. Open the folder C: Program Files Common Files InstallShield Driver from the machine. There should be folders with numbers in this Driver folder, for example 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1050, 11.
Delete these folders. Unzip this file. For more information on unzipping files, see.
![Scansoft paperport 11 repair software Scansoft paperport 11 repair software](http://support.brother.com/g/b/img/faqend/faq00002995_006/as_ot/en/30558/B_step1_6.jpg)
Double-click the IsScript.msi file. This installs the IsScript engine for this version of the installation. Now try running PaperPort 11 again. If it still has problems opening, try reinstalling PaperPort 11. I’m happy to help further over the phone at Answered on Jan 23, 2011.
The Neat Net Tricks Software Review Panel is pleased to report on its extensive evaluation of Scansoft PaperPort 11 Professional. PaperPort Professional transforms paper documents into searchable digital documents. It enables Microsoft Windows to visually manage paper and PDF plus over 150 document and photo forms. Reviewer 1 Why do you need this program? According to a recent study, 30% of office labor time is spent handling paper documents and 7.5% of them get lost! $20 is spent on filing for each document, $120 to search for 'lost' documents and up to $250 to recreate the lost document if it's not found.
That is eye opening information, possibly enough to justify using a document management system such as this one. Installation The installation of this application is straightforward. A 'wizard' style installer walks the user through the process. Administrative rights are required to install.
The installer automatically inserts the proper 'key' or 'serial number' during the installation. If a scanner is plugged in at the time of installation, PaperPort will discover it and install the correct drivers needed to work with it. A button on the scanner may be dedicated to automatically launch PaperPort for scanning into folders etc. At the end of the installation, a prompt asks for activation of the program with registration on line; otherwise, only five launches of an inactivated program are allowed. Registration gives access to updates and product support. Support There are several options for free support offered by Nuance:,. All this information is fairly basic, potentially useful but strictly user-guided with no interactive help available for free.
The real surprise to me was that Nuance does not offer any free tech support for paid users by phone or email! This is a $200.00 program without a form of technical support that is commonly found with just about any type of software.
With the majority of software I've used, email support is usually available and often phone support of some type. Here is Nuance's statement found on their Web site: ' Individual users can interact with Nuance Technical Support through a pay per-incident email process. Incidents can be reported by completing the Problem Report Form at a cost of $9.95 per incident.' Phone support is even more at $19.95 per incident. I explored some of the 'free' options to see if they actually were useful in solving potential problems a normal user might run into. Online Knowledge Base proved somewhat useful with a searchable database of articles on various issues one might experience.
Downloads provided various patches and conflict resolution solutions for known issues. I drilled down to the PaperPort area on the support Web site and tried to view the forum as a guest. Nothing worked and no forum could be viewed. What is the point of having a 'guest' account if you cannot actually use it to view the forum?
I then tried to register as a 'New User' and filled out the usual form of User name, password, actual name and email. I used a 'temporary email' for this to avoid getting added to a list for further promotion of Nuance's products.
PaperPort, like many other 'registration required' sites, uses the 'verification email link' process to avoid 'bots'. I never received a reply. Working with the program PaperPort allows one to:.
Scan documents. Edit and enhance images. Organize files. Assemble documents.
Search for items. Add notes. Handle forms There are two interfaces in PaperPort; the actual PaperPort 11 Desk Top and a tool bar type interface called 'ScanDirect' that points the output at several programs. This can be done without opening the full PaperPort program. The ScanDirect options include scanning to the PaperPort Desktop, Outlook, Omnipage SE, Excel, Word, Notepad, Wordpad, PowerPoint, Web publisher, FTP and direct to printer (for use as a copier). 'Capture Assistant' PaperPort 11 Professional uses a 'Capture Assistant' to help scan and direct output. With it, one can add additional pages, preview pages, re-order, rotate, insert blank pages and 'tag' with keywords before actually saving to the PaperPort Desktop.
The subject, author, keywords and document name can be applied to the scanned document using the scan dialog box. PaperPort 11 Professional has an integrated 'SET Tools' ( Scanner Enhancement Technology) function that permits control of the quality of all scans. With it various enhancements can be designed such as auto-straighten, auto-orient, auto-enhance, erase edges, auto-crop, resize, sharpen, remove red-eye and erase tool. By right clicking the folders, the 'folder notes' property sheet can be opened in which information about the documents can be added such as; subject, author and tags or keywords. You can also change the color of the folder icon. There is a function available to use PaperPort 11 on a network using 'Desktop Delivery' and a networked scanning station.
One can simply create the needed 'shared network folders' accessible by the users on the network and then create 'receiving folders' inside PaperPort. When files are scanned into the receiving folders, they are automatically sent to the linked network shares. This function is accessed from the 'Tools' menu dropdown. Using PaperPort 11 Professional; As a trial, I set up a series of folders in 'My PaperPort Documents' section of the 'Folders' view in the main program and began scanning 2007 related business files so as to archive these and recycle the physical paper documents. This would be a good 'paper reduction' measure for any business. This is commonly done to save physical filing space and associated costs. Trial 1 Step 1: clear un-needed folders Step 2: create new folders Step 3: scan various documents from the ScanDirect tool bar.
Result: While PaperPort worked and scanned both single pages and multi-page documents to the proper folders, it cut off the edges on most of the documents making them useless. No matter what setting it adjusted or paper placement in the scanner, I could not resolve this issue. The Help files addressed this by pointing to the 'erase edges' settings but these were not in use so that was no help at all. Since this is a review project, I chose not to pay for a support call (see above comment about support from Nuance). Trial 2 For this trial, I used the built in 'ScanGear' window from the program.
This worked much better. I found that on some documents that I still had to 'fudge' the paper position a bit to get the full text to show without cutting some off. To me, this is not conducive to rapid achieving of documents and was too finicky. Trial 3 Scan to OmniPage SE. Scan a pamphlet from Social Security.
This was a regular, clearly printed form listing projected benefits and earnings record with easily readable type size and face of formatted text. The result was less than acceptable.
OmniPage SE could not handle a simple form. This function has limited usefulness and takes too long to make corrections with the formatting still way off. Trial 4 Scan to MS Excel & Word.
No luck here, just gibberish on the output in Excel 2003. I had set the 'send to' options to MS Excel 2003 but the output was still unreadable.
The options for word were for.rtf output. I set it for RTF Word 2000.rtf and it worked fairly well.
The formatting was a little off but very easily corrected. Trial 5, Scan to WordPad. Since this is a basic text only application, PaperPort worked fine. Trial 6 Scan to NotePad Again, basic text, worked fine. Trial 7 Scan to Web Publisher.
This worked fine. I specified Mozilla FireFox as the program to use to open it. It would also have used an HTML editor if I had one installed. Trial 8 Send to printer.
This worked fine. The pop-up allows selection of the printer any installed on one's system, including PDF printers and ScanSoft's own installed PDF printer PaperPort Pro also had the option to send to FTP but I did not have this available so it was not tested. Conclusions: Depending on the operation, PaperPort 11 Professional worked well or not at all. With a little study of the help files and the tutorials, I was able to get useful output much of the time. Other times I could not get it to do what it says it will. The ability to 'tag' files and make them available for search is a plus and potentially useful.
PaperPort's strong suit seems to be in scanning and filing and that seemed to work fairly well with an 'image' of the document and storing PDFs. If it had to invoke the OmniPage SE, it failed in most cases other than plain text output. Granted, the OmniPage SE is a 'light' version of the full OmniPage program but this is the professional version of PaperPort! It should work better. Given what I have found in testing this software, I would be hesitant to spend $200 on it. I have other, much less expensive options for basic scan and file operations.
Most scanners come with a 'toolbox' of some sort that will perform these functions. Reviewer 2 Many readers will be familiar with PaperPort from earlier versions that accompanied scanners they purchased. In addition to being able to manage scanning documents, PaperPort 11 Pro can help one to organize, annotate, distribute, and change formats of existing documents and image files. It also features search functions to find information within files on your computer and on the web. While PaperPort is generally centered on document management, it is a defocused set of programs that do not seem particularly coordinated.
It places heavy emphasis on using the.PDF format to store documents and to mine information. It facilitates scanning and Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
It provides image editing and searching files, and it attempts to search the Internet and capture Web pages. It often feels like a collection of programs patched together rather than a cohesive whole.
Installation Installation was straightforward but with a few twists. The license agreement noted that the program could phone home for continued activation and that it could be deactivated should one's hardware change or if there was reason to suspect a pirated copy. Activation makes the software functional beyond the first five uses, but registration was required in order to download upgrades and to be eligible for support. The registration process required some basic personal information and contained a very extensive amount of voluntary private information. When PaperPort is installed, multiple programs are set to run silently each time the computer starts whether one is using PaperPort or not. While these programs may keep PaperPort updated and make it start faster, they slow the system's startup and represent a constant drain on system's resources.
I normally disallow these startup programs, (Microsoft Office and Intuit's Quicken exhibit similar behavior), but for this review I allowed them, to avoid the possibility of compromising this program's functionality. Support Perhaps the weakest aspect of this program is support. Here is their description. Translation: the support request is free; after that, one must pay a minimum of $9.95 per contact, even if is to report a bug in their software.
In my opinion, this is an unacceptable policy for a program with a retail cost of about $200.00. Not only does it inhibit users from solving their own problems, it also presents a significant barrier to the company's awareness of flaws in their program, which should lead to improvements via patches and subsequent upgrades. Using PaperPort When the user first starts PaperPort, he is presented with a choice of 'How To Guides'.
These give detailed instructions about how to do the varied functions which PaperPort offers. While these are helpful once one has learned the overview of what the program(s) can do, I did not find them helpful when I first started using this program.
They told me how to do lots of things, but what I really needed was some guidance about what results I might expect to achieve by using the program. Scanning worked well on my system. In order to scan, the scanner must be pre-installed. After choosing 'Scan or Get Photo' from the 'File' menu, a scanning menu is displayed on the left column.
One must select the scanner and then choose a Profile to scan from within PaperPort; the profile is highly customizable and reusable. Once the scan is complete, the document is stored and displayed in the current PaperPort Folder. The display, by default, is a large thumbnail. This makes documents with graphics or unusual formatting easy to spot. As far as I could determine, I was limited to placing my PaperPort Folders on my C: drive under the 'My Documents' folder or its subfolders.
I could not find other options. For me, this is a high barrier to using this program, because I save my data on another partition in order to easily backup just my data separately from my operating system and programs.
To translate scanned files containing text into editable text files, the document is dragged from the PaperPort folder to an icon of the program to which the file is to be imported. (The icons for the relevant programs are incorporated into a section of the PaperPort display.) I found the OCR function to be quite accurate, even when challenged with difficult color documents with less than optimal contrast. Pure image files seemed to translate text better into Microsoft Word than the same document captured as a.PDF file. Options are available to optimize graphic files to make them more readable by increasing sharpness and setting black/white points.
To see the details of the documents captured, double-clicking on them will open them in a new window titled 'PageView'. PageView is the full-screen document and image editor/viewer. Thumbnails of the pages are displayed in the left panel and the full-sized page is displayed on the right panel.
Basic editing tools are available for images, but these are geared more towards making scanned images readable than for maximizing the artistic beauty of photos. Popular image formats such as.JPG. TIFF are supported, but advanced formats such as.NEF (Nikon's RAW format), which I commonly use, are not. There is an option for red eye reduction, but this feels like an add-on rather than being integrated with the documents-oriented theme of this software. One aspect of using PaperPort, which I found bothersome, was that when one program/window is opened, no other PaperPort window is accessible. For example, switching from the main PaperPort window to the PageView window, one can only see the PageView window. The PaperPort window is only viewable and its functions available again after closing the PageView window.
This issue was most acute when I accessed the 'Help' menu. In order to apply what I was learning in Help to the program, I had to close the Help window entirely instead of being able to toggle back and forth. This meant that in order to follow a complex process I either had to memorize the instructions, repeatedly open and close Help, or to print out the Help page.
The 'All in-One' Search function allows searching within your files for specific text, keywords, or authors. To use it to its fullest extent, it is necessary to allow PaperPort to index files.
The scope of its search is limited to the' My Documents' file and subfolders. This severely limited its usefulness on my system. My attempt to use 'Web Capture' was unsuccessful.
This function is supposed to save all or part of a currently displayed web page to a.PDF file to create a permanent archive of the current state of a Website. I am using the latest version of FireFox under Windows XP Pro SP2, and when I followed the instructions for 'Web Capture', an error message popped up stating that 'Web Capture is not supported on either Windows Vista or Internet Explorer 7.0.' And it referred me to other Nuance products to do this task. 'Watson' is an 'Intelligent Search Agent' which is mentioned as a new feature but not documented in the Help file beyond a brief mention. The most detail I was able to find was a 'PaperPort Watson FAQ' listed in the sample documents folder.
It reportedly begins an 'intelligent Web search' using third- party search engines when a Web page is opened. It analyzes the content of the page and searches in the background for related content.
I was not able to find Watson neither within PaperPort, nor as a separate item on my Start menu. The FAQ addresses the issue of being able to uninstall PaperPort as a separate program, so I assume that it did not install with the standard installation package.
What Is The Best Use Of This Software? It seems best suited for an office environment where documents can be scanned, stored on a central server, and shared among many users. I could see it being useful for a lawyer gathering documents for a case, a researcher working on a project, or a corporate team. Due to its cost, learning curve, and support policies, I do not see it well suited for the casual or average individual user. Reviewer 3 Installation In order to install PaperPort, I needed the registration key even though I was using the PaperPort installation CD.
I had copied the key from the label on the CD box into a text file so that I could copy and paste it, but had to enter the sets of numbers and letters into each individual box. Some programs allow you to copy and paste, and automatically flow the key through all the boxes. A minor point, but the installation process will often give a user his or her first impression of the program itself. As I like to control the set-up process as much as possible, I opted for the 'Custom Set-up' rather than 'Typical.'
A 'Set Initial Desktops' button comes up without any explanation of what it is and what its purpose is. I created a folder for this item, to see what it is for. Some explanation should be given at this point in the installation. I was able to place the program where I wished, and could choose whether or not to have an icon on the desktop.
Before the end of the process, PaperPort tried to install a new Start-up Program, but did not notify me that this was happening. I only knew of it by a warning from WinPatrol. It turns out that it is an automatic updating program (not actually Nuance's but from a partner company), which is not essential to running the program. However, it should also be explained, and a choice given as to whether I want it installed or not. I disabled it with WinPatrol, as I really do try to avoid non-essential programs that waste CPU and memory resources. Two other programs also secretly install themselves.
One is a document-indexing program (OK), and the other is required for registration and activation. Once that has been completed, it can be removed. However, I also had to use WinPatrol to accomplish this. Pdf Creator 4 is installed as well as PaperPort Image printer. Finally, one must register with Nuance and 'activate' the program. This requires a connection to the Internet.
As activation can sometimes go wrong, it would probably be a good idea to do a hard drive image when the program has been successfully installed, registered and activated. Working with the Desktop PaperPort is built around the Desktop. This acts as a central point from which to manage the flow of documents, whether they have been 'brought in' via a scanner, a digital camera, or have been added from other locations on the computer. Below is a snapshot of my current Desktop, with files that have been imported from several different sources.
On the left are the folders that I have added to the Folders Pane. Here I can work directly on files from within PaperPort. I have found this to be particularly useful, as I often need to use documents that are related to individual clients. As they come in, for example, via the scanner, I can immediately copy or move them into the appropriate folders.
This is much easier than going outside PaperPort to accomplish the same task. All changes are reflected in the actual folders and files themselves. When no longer needed they can be removed from the PaperPort Folders Pane. Be careful to remove them; if deleted, they will be sent to the Recycle bin. The Folder Pane also has features that resemble the functions in Explorer, for managing the folders: copy, move, delete, etc. In particular, I like the ability to add notes to a Folder. For years I have been using an old freeware program called Filenote to create notes associated with the names of files.
It is an enormously useful function, but only works with files. Here, one can create notes associated with Folders. With hundreds of folders, it is often practical to be able to make additional comments, which assist in remembering the contents of a folder, the reason it was created, or any other bits of information to help manage the data. In PaperPort, 'Folder Notes' can be used to put in Comments, the Author and Keywords - just as can be done (under Properties) with files. Unfortunately, PaperPort must be open to use this information - it is not replicated to Explorer, either for Files or for Folders. On the right side are 'thumbnails' of documents that have been brought into PaperPort, and which I am still using.
At the bottom right corner of each thumbnail there is a small icon that identifies what kind of document it is. Some of the documents here, although identified as 'pdf' files are not 'real' pdf documents - although for most purposes they are. In those cases, they cannot be used directly by some of the features of PaperPort. However, PaperPort will convert them into its own.MAX format, which will allow them to be processed by PaperPort features, such as Touch-up, Annotation, PDF Searchable files, the FormTyper, etc.
I found useful features available directly via the Thumbnails. For example, I use an Internet fax provider service. Faxes arrive as attachments to email messages, in pdf format.
They can often come in with pages out of order, pages that are upside down, some are unnecessary, etc. A great feature here is the ability to 'unstack' the pages in a file. They can then be individually realigned, rotated, deleted and reordered, and otherwise cleaned up and reorganized. They can then be 'restacked', so that the file is now much more usable. Thumbnails up stacked on top of each other, thus combining files into one.
This is by far the easiest method I have yet seen to do this kind of file management. On the other hand, some of the annotation tools were less impressive. For example, I added some text and highlighting to a page in the second document (MsSlps07). While on the PaperPort desktop, the text and highlighting showed up properly.
However, the original document in its own (Explorer) location had not been changed. I copied the file from the PaperPort desktop into its folder (with a new name). When I opened that document with the Foxit pdf reader, the highlighting and note appeared but not the text. It took a bit of experimenting to set up the Scanner (an Epson), but it now works very well. One of the more difficult tasks I gave it was to scan a recipe in from a folded newspaper, (the LentilSoup Image on my Desktop above) then export it to a Microsoft Word document. Clearly, newspaper is not the highest quality of documentary source material, complete with ink smudges, bled text from the other side of the page, and in particular, a multi-column layout. But the Word document was quite remarkable.
The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) worked very well - with some understandable mistakes, because of the poor quality of the input. Most impressive was the fact that the program deciphered the columns and put them in the correct order. It was very simple to delete the extraneous text, and make the few required corrections to produce a good document. I also used the 'Copy Text' function (in the right-click drop-down menu), and then pasted it into Edit Pad (text editor). Again, the OCR was excellent. I also tested the features of the photo enhancement functions in PaperPort. Some of the tools work well, and others create results that are less desirable.
When working with photos, I like to be able to see the 'before' and 'after', before actually applying any changes. This is particularly true if what you are doing is going to make permanent changes to your actual photo. For example, I allowed the program to 'AutoEnhance' the photo of Cashew, said 'yes' to the warning, and then had the dog disappear almost completely into the background. Worse, I had moved Cashew onto the Desktop rather than copying her there. This is not Cashew at her best, so the loss would not have been great. But I did want that particular photo to demonstrate that the Red-Eye remover works effectively - so a backup was called into action. Had I used the manual Enhance function, I would have seen the possibilities before making a choice.
Thus, for most photo manipulation functions, I would rather use a specialized program. Being able to access data that may be located anywhere inside your organizational structure is essential or the data is useless. PaperPort includes a search feature, but to be able to use it, you must have the All-in-one-Search module index the files that you have brought into PaperPort. As I had imported the 'Client' files into PaperPort, this indexing process took a long time the first time that it was run. It is complicated by the fact that it seems to need to use the OCR abilities of the program to translate the material within pdf files to text, before being able to create the index. Since the All-in-one-Search feature can look through the comments, keywords, author, annotations, and other ancillary aspects of the files, it is worth building the index and keeping it up-to-date.
On the other hand, I prefer my ancient version of the X1 Desktop Search program, which will find items for me very quickly on any or all of the drives on my computer. I can even specify peculiar file extensions (such as those used by Pegasus, my favourite email client), and they will also be included in the X1 index.
And, it will run its indexing function only when the computer is not occupied with other work. The PaperPort Indexer will hold PaperPort completely hostage, and therefore unusable while it is doing its indexing.
More and more often, I find myself downloading forms from sites on the Internet that need to be filled. Usually I have to print it out, fill it in by hand, then mail it back to whoever sent it to me.
With the FormTyper, I can import the document into PaperPort, either by scanning it, if it is a paper document, or by moving it in from another location on the computer. When I open it up in FormTyper, PaperPort recognizes the parts of the document that are sections that need to be filled in. One can tab from one 'field' to the next and type in the appropriate information. Sometimes, PaperPort 'thinks' that a blank space between lines is a field to be filled in, but this can simply be tabbed past it, or advanced the next place by clicking with the mouse. An improvement that would be helpful in this module would be better control of the zoom feature. Clicking on the + and - buttons will often zoom the document in too close, or too far away.
I was looking forward to using PaperPort primarily as a system of document management - as a means of using a specialized program other than Windows Explorer to organize and keep track of my work files. As it happens, the work that I do involves several hundred clients.
For some, I only need one file folder, and for others, I need a number. However, each time that I start PaperPort, it demands that I turn on my scanner.
I am unable to tell it that I do not want to use the scanner just now and proceed to use the program for document management. The program insists in going into a 'troubleshoot the scanner' mode, and will not accept a simple 'Cancel' or 'No' but goes into a loop that takes over the whole computer. I am unable to run any other program at all.
My only option is to force a shutdown of the program, via the Task Manager. However, even that does not always work and I have to go into a physical shutdown of the whole system - in other words, turn off the switch (akin to pulling the plug). Of course, I could just turn on the scanner, but that is not always practical. The How-to-Guides are very useful to get started in the main modules of the program, and will come up each time until this option is turned off, then sometimes still available under the Help menu. They are very well-designed, clear and presented in an easy-to-follow manner. Oddly enough, it is impossible to have the Guide open in its own window, and go back and forth between the Guide and the program itself.
The guide imposes itself on top of everything else, and unless closed completely, one cannot do anything in the program. Clicking on one of the links in the Guide advances to a specific item in the program, but the guide shuts down and disappears. To read the next sentence, one must go back to the Help Menu, select the Guide, and click to the point where it had vanished. In fact, I found quite often that if the program runs into one snag or another, it stalls completely.
It seems that the task that it is working on just now requires its total attention. It is as if nothing else can occur until this particular task has been completed, and its associated window is closed. It is impossible to access any other part of the PaperPort leaving that task to carry on in the background. Support: For every program that I evaluate, both personally and as a member of this Panel, I consider the support provided by the developer to be an important part of my decision as to whether or not to purchase or recommend that program.
Nuance does provide support, but it is far below inadequate. There is one 'free' request as part of the purchase price. After that, each incident costs a minimum of $9.95. For a program as costly as this one, this is truly a pathetic, and even arrogant, attitude to take towards the users. Almost all of the programs that are reviewed by the Neat Net Tricks Software Panel provide free support to the users. Some are better than others, and some are outstanding - often responding to queries within hours.
On the Nuance site, there is reference to Community Forums. Forums devoted to a software program are often an excellent supplement to the support offered officially by the developers. Not only do they provide an archive of questions asked and answered, they are often an outstanding source of free advertising of the product by enthusiastic users. I belong to several such forums, and often read comments by users who have decided to stay with the program, because of the free and enthusiastic support of the other users. When we were reviewing the Omni Page program, I went through many hoops attempting to join the Community forums, not only for Omni Page, but for the other Nuance Products as well. When we started on this review, I tried again, with the same lack of success as before.
But accidentally, I found that there is a group of enthusiasts, and they do run a forum, independent of Nuance, but perhaps also unofficially attended by enthusiastic Nuance staff. I have joined that group, and have found a lot of interesting information simply by reading through questions and comments posted there.
It can be found at:. What Is The Best Use Of This Program? PaperPort is a versatile program, with many features to recommend it. If your requirements for document management are based around files that come in via scanners, cameras and email, it may just be the thing for you. Personally, I need a program that is centered around my clients. So I prefer to work with a management system that has my contacts list as its focal point.
If PaperPort could be linked to my Contacts program, it would be hard to beat. But sadly, I cannot unequivocally recommend it at present, because Nuance really does have to treat its users with much more respect than they do now. Reviewer 4 No other combination of hardware and software did more to change how I used a computer that a scanner and OCR software such as the OmniPage 16 program by Nuance that I recently reviewed in these pages. That combination came nearest to fulfilling the oft-made promise of a paperless society (or office or home) where we would work with digital files exclusively, and scan and then recycle anything on paper.
While this is still a pipedream, easily ninety percent of the paper that enters my home (bills, receipts, junk mail, photographs, etc) either goes in the garbage or in my 'to be scanned' file. Since, however, the promise of a truly paperless society has not yet been realized, a document management program is needed to handle or process and organize all of those scanned images that we (sometimes) scatter throughout our computers without much or with little attention to organization. Enter Nuance software's PaperPort 11 Pro. PaperPort 11 Professional is reportedly designed and claims to make scanners, all-in-ones, and multifunction devices easier to use and more productive as well as allow organization of documents already existing on the hard drive, in addition to saving and organizing Web pages. Its primary method of accomplishing this task is by converting paper and digital documents to indexed portable document files (PDFs) through the import of existing documents or Web sites, the ability to scan documents, and performing optical character recognition.
These are just the basics of the feature-rich program, however, so let's take a look at the features and how well they performed. After several months of testing using both the built in OCR software as well as Nuance's separate OCR program, OmniPage 16; and with a nod to a popular feature film of a few years past we will examine The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. THE GOOD Among its extensive features, PaperPort 11 Pro purports to offer a better way to scan documents by making all-in-ones or scanners easier to use and more productive by offering one-button adjustments such as auto-straighten, auto-crop, auto-rotate, and auto-enhance to mention just a few.
Generally, through use of its Scanner Enhancement Technology (SET) and its Capture Assistant that allows one to set up 'profiles,' it is possible to achieve excellent results on most any kind of document. While the scans using OCR are not yet perfect, they are getting close to perfect with the only problems I encountered dealing with tables and in distinguishing pictures from text occasionally. It does not work with handwriting.
It offers support for the scanner buttons already built into your scanner or all-in-one that allow scanning directly to the computer but now, by taking control over these buttons, PaperPort manages these controls to assure better control of documents ending up where they are wanted. In order to further simplify the scanning process, Paper Port replaces the scanner's interface or control panel with its own. An extremely nice feature is its ability to compress PDF documents. Scanning and sharing color PDF files can be an almost Herculean task since each page of a typical color PDF file can be over a megabyte in size.
When sending multiple pages, the size will be too large for most email clients. PaperPort Professional uses what it calls MRC High Compression Technology to turn, say, a 15MB color file into less than 2MB!
It does take the software a little more time to display compressed pages due, I assume, to the need to decompress them. PaperPort Professional really simplifies creating and using PDF documents using its ScanSoft PDF Create! With the portable document format (PDF) being an open standard file format for sharing electronic documents on email, over a network, or on the Web, PaperPort Professional allows creating PDF files from any application; scanning to PDF; searching PDF files; annotation; and so on. Any document in the PaperPort workspace can be one or more pages and is represented in the main document display as a thumbnail of its first page.
To turn it into something more directly useful, such as a Word file or a PDF document, simply drag the document thumbnail over the icon of the application desired. PaperPort generates a row of application icons at the bottom of the screen (see illustration below), which are derived from the programs already installed. So, for example, if one drags a PaperPort document over the Word icon, the program calls on its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine and produces a fairly accurate Doc file from it.
Similarly, if it is dragged over the Adobe reader icon, PaperPort generates a PDF file, using Nuance's own PDF Create 3. This all happens transparently, unless the OCR or PDF program needs further guidance to complete a task. Scans can be combined with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint pages to make highly customized documents. The PDRF files are compatible with, but do not require, Adobe Acrobat and were compatible with even lesser-known applications such as Foxit Reader.
Using any local or network scanner, one can turn paper documents directly into PDF files, ands using the DesktopDelivery feature, files can easily be shared online or through email. There is however, much more that can be done with PDF Create! One can capture Web pages and PDF files, providing a full-color duplicate for use offline which can be a real help in speeding up Web-based research or for sharing Web pages instead of simply sending a link. The captured pages that I made looked exactly as they would have they been sent to my printer: clean, focused, and with no loss of detail. This could be another way of saving receipts from online purchases. Yet another nice feature is the ease with which custom PDF documents can be assembled using 'drag & drop.' PaperPort uses a unique desktop design that displays individual page thumbnails alongside document thumbnails (see illustrations below).
Drag and drop entire documents into another document or selectively copy and paste from one document to another to quickly assemble custom PDF documents. The thumbnails were a bit too small in some views, but still readable. Document management is really a breeze using PaperPort Professional as it combines all of the tools needed to scan paper documentsd and organize them in a single program. Again, PaperPort allows seeing all one's work at once, as in the above illustrations, providing large thumbnails of scanned documents, photos, etc, and allowing the user to quickly find, organize, and use files without having to open each one to see what is inside.
It is just like having all documents spread out on a real desktop! PaperPort's All-in-One Search is a powerful search engine built into the application. Simply type in a word or pharse and PaperPort will quickly retrieve the document. PaperPort actually reads all files with the built in OmniPage Search Indexer so one can search for a word inside any document, or search by content as well as annotations.
Searching does not stop here, however. There is also PaperPort Watson.
Watson expands search capabilities to emails, the Web, news sites, blogs, shopping sites, and so on. What is nice about Watson is that when it finds the information, brings it to a docking sidebar and then allows the user you to drag and drop the information into the PaperPort Desktop as PDF files. This is an extremely intelligent feature. Other interesting features include an electronic form filler using the feature named FormTyper which is designed to automatically identify form fields allowing one to quickly tab to each fillable field, type the information, and print, save, or email.
Unfortumately, I found this feature simply unusable. It is poorly controlled with unpredicatable entry placement. I could not predict where the printed output would align. This failure is all the more troubling since control and predictability is something required for a feature that is to function as a form filler.
PaperPort works with one's existing email client to allow for editing and annotating PDF files within sent emails. While this worked well using Outlook Express, it did not work with either AOL mail or Thunderbird.
Additionally, there are numerous features designed specifically to be used in networking or network situations. All in all, PaperPort has all of the features one could want in not only moving toward a paperless office or home, but then organizing and using that paperless environement. THE BAD As you can discern from the above, this is a software program that I really wanted to like.
It is intelligent, comprehensive, and has all of the features one could possibly need to bring efficiency to document handling and moving the document retention procedure to a truly professional level. Unfortunately, my expectations and hopes could not have been further from the practical reality of this program. I have been involved in the computer industry for almost thirty years as an educator, designer, technician, and software reviewer. Yet never in all of those years have I encountered a software program that offers so much potential, asks so much of its user, and then delivers so little. Put simply, PaperPort Professional 11 is fatally flawed. It is more buggy than most Beta programs I have tested in my lifetime and at $199.00 and a staggering- and bandwidth- numbing 300MB, I expected more, much more than a program that when it is not crashing is freezing; when it is not freezing is stumbling; and when it seems to be running almost smoothly-albeit turning your once Ferrari-fast computer into a Hyundai with a bad engine miss-seems to infest other software with which it interacts with whatever bugs plague it. In short, if I could bill Nuance Software, developers of PaperPort Professional, even at minimum wage for all of the hours I spent trying to resolve all of the issues that I encountered with this software, they would owe me more than the cost of their product.
Let's begin with installation. The various components of the product continually and ceaselessly popped up dialogues often hidden by the main set-up menu. Some parts of the program but not others needing authentication. Through trial and error since support is generally non-existent (see below) I found I needed to disable my antivirus application, antispyware program, any other PDF creator programs, any programs by Roxio, and then stop as many programs running in the back ground as possible.
This will dramatically increase your chances-though not guarantee them-of a relatively smooth initial installation. Paper Port's tentacles reach so deeply into your computer and integrates with so many other software applications on your computer, that even running a registry cleaner/repair program caused the installation to fail. With Microsoft's DEP (Data Execution Protection) service turned on one, PaperPort and PdfCreateHook must be added to the list of it just won't run. (This is not indicated in the Knowledge Base).
Once the program seems to be installed the user may find that it does not work, most likely due to the scanner or all-in-one that must be TWAIN compliant driver and have no extra frills. There is a 'hint' file that has customizable rules for a large number of scanners and all-in-ones so I had an idea of what I was looking for.
In my case, I had to call HP (their tech support is FREE!) to learn that I had to uninstall the complex consumer driver and install the business driver instead. Of course, I no longer have the factory interface that is used for scanning, copying, faxing and printing. In its place is a simple TWAIN driver that is controlled by PaperPort. All in all, it took me the better part of an entire day simply to install and get working this program. Once installed all was still not well.
I continued to get cryptic error messages. Each time the scanner would start, I would get an ESLang.dll error message and each time I launch a Microsoft Office product, the PaperPort installer starts up.
There is no reference to these problems in either the Help files or the ridiculously inadequate knowledge base on the Nuance Web site. There is also a bug which imprints a 'trial copy' legend on PDF files but this one is explained in the knowledge base and requires Registry editing, not something to be done by the inexperienced or faint of heart. When actually running for those few moments here and there that are bug-free, the program is very slow, requiring a great deal of patience for the program to load, then load a document or advance a page on a scanned document.
Another problem worth noting is that many, I think, would want to sort the view of thumbnails of your documents by date-with the most recent ones on top. PaperPort pretends it can sort this way but when it indexes, it destroys the file dates of every file, rendering sort-by-date useless. Another annoyance is that it does not offer automatic updates. One must painstakingly comb the Web site, log in with an account, download it, and install it.
Finally, between the aforementioned crashes, hangs, sputters and stalls as well as to its other little idiosyncrasies such as causing the spell check function in Word to stop functioning, and after a too-long nightmare testing this software program, I looked forward to uninstalling it. It uninstalled seemingly with ease until I found that many of the above described problems with launching Microsoft Office, using Word, etc, still existed. I also was unable to use any of the competing PDF creation programs I had installed on my computer. I assumed that since it had so fully integrated itself into my system that there was going to be some registry cleanup to be done.
Using the highly-respected and very safe JV16 product, I began the process of searching the registry for unremoved entries as well as empty keys left behind which is not unusual-especially in programs that are not well-designed. Usually one may find between 10 or 12 such entries on the low end and as many as 50 or 60 on the high end. Once again, PaperPort managed to surprise me.
There were a total of 674 entries needing to be removed. I backed up the registry and allowed the entries to be repaired or removed. Now Word would no longer open at all. So I restored the registry but still had nonfunctioning or incorrectly functioning Microsoft Office programs on my computer. Finding no other reasonable alternative and having already wasted too much time on this truly deplorable product, I again cleaned the Registry and then reformatted my computer with one of the disc images I keep on hand for just such an emergency. THE UGLY As I indicated in my last review of Nuance's OmniPage 16, I refuse to recommend any software that does not offer free support, and in the case of Nuance, not only is support not free but it is extortionist in its cost. Now that last time I wrote about this, Nuance took great exception and took me to task for failing to mention that there is one free support incident allowed.
YOU GET ONE FREE BITE AT THE SUPPORT APPLE. After that, you will pay $19.95 per each incident for telephone support and $9.95 if you want them to answer your email question. That's right, $10.00 just to read and answer your email.
And, oh yes, this includes installation issues as well! Sadly, there is not a real alternative to this program on the market.
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