Scanning multipage documents

[DevilsPGD]

I just recently picked up a scanner w/ADF, with the intention of
scanning a couple years worth of documents (bills, mostly). Many of the
bills are multiple pages, and some are two sided.

I can scan the documents into individual TIF pages easy enough and I can
even sort out the two-sided stuff and intersperse the pages (I'll do it
in two batches, front and back, then rename the entire fronts to
filenameA and the backs to filenameB)

However, there is still a huge task ahead of me, combining the pages
into manageable documents (and naming them, although I'm fully aware I
have a ton of typing)

With all that in mind, I'm looking for a program that will quickly and
easily let me combine multiple pages into single documents, preferably
in TIF format.

Ideally I'd like something that would display two images on the screen,
and ask me if they're the same document. If I say yes, then I'll be
shown the next page, and so on, until I say no. Then it will combine
the documents and move on.

I don't need the software to handle the actual scanning, although it
wouldn't hurt if I could find an all in one package as long as it can
scan the entire contents of the ADF in one go, I don't want to have to
wait for another page to be scanned before I can decide if it's the same
document or not.

I spent a good couple of hours looking at scanner software on Google
without success so far, so I'm hoping somebody knows of software that
can help me out.

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

I just recently picked up a scanner w/ADF, with the intention of
scanning a couple years worth of documents (bills, mostly). Many of
the bills are multiple pages, and some are two sided.

I spent a good couple of hours looking at scanner software on Google
without success so far, so I'm hoping somebody knows of software that
can help me out.

You had a lot of requirements. What I use is Xnview (www.xnview.com) to
scan my ADF documents into a multipage tiff file. What I do for two sided
is make a copy of the backsides and then sort the fronts and copies into the
ADF. This way I get all of the document sides in one file in order. I do
not know if this will help you or not.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Bill Bradshaw"

You had a lot of requirements. What I use is Xnview (www.xnview.com) to
scan my ADF documents into a multipage tiff file. What I do for two sided
is make a copy of the backsides and then sort the fronts and copies into the
ADF. This way I get all of the document sides in one file in order. I do
not know if this will help you or not.

I debated making copies of the backsides, but we're talking several
inches of paper here, probably a third or more is two sided, so that's
extremely wasteful even if I use both sides of the dupes (which is even
more manual work)

I can handle all the scanning and page ordering of two-sided documents
myself with the tools I already have, it's just the final combining of
documents that I want to ease.

The big thing is that I want to put several documents on the scanner at
once and let it go, I don't want to go through a separate action for
each document.

This means I need to carve up pages into documents after the fact. It's
a necessary evil, but if I can let the scanner get fair enough ahead of
me it won't be a painful sequence of click, wait for it to scan, type
something, click, wait for it to scan, etc.

I also want to avoid manually selecting the pages from a list, I want
something that will quickly and easily go through a bunch of TIFF files
(or a single multipage TIF and easily set the breakpoints where a new
file started)

However, I detailed the whole project in case there is any program that
does everything for me or is a complete document management system.

Once I'm done I'll start the second project, which is to document each
file in a database by supplier, date and amount. Weeeeeeee!
Unfortunately, my accountant needs everything documented, and I'm not
willing to store the paper anymore. Once I get caught up, I'll be able
to stay caught up without too much pain if I do a monthly batch, or scan
whenever I'm bored.

At the end of the day I'm VERY tempted to throw together a spare PC, put
it on a desk with the scanner and hire a temp to do the boring work, I
could get the job done for $100/day, it wouldn't take more then
two-three days to do it in the scan-wait-save-wait, rinse, repeat
format, but I'm thinking that if I can find a process, I can make the
scanner do the bulk of the work and then only spend a few hours (total)
cleaning up the results.

 

[rich]

I just recently picked up a scanner w/ADF, with the intention of
scanning a couple years worth of documents (bills, mostly). Many of the
bills are multiple pages, and some are two sided.

I can scan the documents into individual TIF pages easy enough and I can
even sort out the two-sided stuff and intersperse the pages (I'll do it
in two batches, front and back, then rename the entire fronts to
filenameA and the backs to filenameB)

However, there is still a huge task ahead of me, combining the pages
into manageable documents (and naming them, although I'm fully aware I
have a ton of typing)

With all that in mind, I'm looking for a program that will quickly and
easily let me combine multiple pages into single documents, preferably
in TIF format.

Just as the other poster said you are asking a lot for a free app. The
closest I can think of is Paperport but this cost money.
You might want to try OpenOffice - I archive bank statements etc. scanned
into an Oo document 1 page per scan, when I get to a years worth I export
the document as a .pdf file and add it to my old files CD. Not perfect but
it works.

Ideally I'd like something that would display two images on the screen,
and ask me if they're the same document. If I say yes, then I'll be
shown the next page, and so on, until I say no. Then it will combine
the documents and move on.

<snip>

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "rich"

Just as the other poster said you are asking a lot for a free app. The
closest I can think of is Paperport but this cost money.
You might want to try OpenOffice - I archive bank statements etc. scanned
into an Oo document 1 page per scan, when I get to a years worth I export
the document as a .pdf file and add it to my old files CD. Not perfect but
it works.

All I really need is a quick and easy way to merge multiple single TIFFs
into a multipage TIFF, or a way to split multipage TIFFs into single
TIFFs at certain points easily.

By "Easily", I mean with one keystroke I want to either move to the next
page, or say "this is a document break", using ACDSee (I'm already
licensed, I realize it's not freeware, but it doesn't cost me anything
extra...) it's about a five click process to merge documents, not
counting an additional click per page to select each document in the
first place.

The scanning I can do with my fax software (it can save to disk), and I
can collate the pages with a batch file when needed.

All that being said, I've been thinking, if I can't come up with
anything easy, I could develop a quick and dirty webapp to do it, all it
really needs to do is mark where the document breaks are and then I can
use imagemagick to do the rest.

However, I'd still rather find a freeware app to handle the
splitting/joining for me since I'm feeling especially lazy

FWIW, I'm willing to spend some money if needed -- It also occurs to me
that I'm thinking about just hiring a temp and getting them to do the
work, so if I'm going to do that, I may as well give some thought to
buying a program to do it, should a perfect program exist.

 

[Dave Smey]

I have two different solutions that I use for mutipage scan into .pdf

For short things that are unlikely to get screwed up, I run a "copier"
program (scan and immediately print) into the FreePDF printer driver, with
"multipage" option on. It combines the pages and then spits out a .pdf with
very good compression.

http://freepdfxp.de/freepdf.htm

For more elaborate things, I make auto-numbered C4Tiffs with Irfanview into
an empty folder, then combine with c42pdf, a command-line prog that .pdf's
everything in said folder. A batch file helps to set all the options
correctly. Sounds like your fax software might make C4Tiffs already.

So literally it's just a case of pasting the tiny .exe and .bat into the
folder and clicking on the .bat, and boom, you've got a pdf. Tinker with
the numbered scans if anything is wrong.

http://c42pdf.ffii.org/

-Dave Smey
(music theory freeware at http://davesmey.com)