We are all used to getting paper out of our computer via a printer, but this doesn’t always address our needs. Have you ever wanted to put a document into your computer to include it in another document you were preparing, without having to retype it? Have you had a form you wanted to fax via your fax modem but couldn't do that without retyping the form? How many times have you wished to get that particular form or document into your computer?
Visioneer has solved this dilemma with the PaperPort. PaperPort is a personal, 300-dpi desktop scanner with a software package that lets you get paper into your computer. You can scan newspaper clippings, letters, memos, reports, brochures, newsletters, and even business cards. Once scanned into your computer, you can add notes and highlights, print and fax documents, edit documents using a word processor, and save the scanned documents. They can also be saved in other file formats such as PICT or TIFF.
Installation is quite simple. Just plug the PaperPort into either the modem or printer port and install the software. This can be a problem, however, if you already have a modem and a printer attached to both ports. Visioneer foresaw this potential problem and offers several solutions (they even include a coupon for the purchase of a serial card). I found the easiest solution was a manual switch box. I now have my printer and PaperPort hooked up to the same port. When I want to use the printer, I turn off the PaperPort by pressing Command-Shift-9 and make the switch to my printer. When I am done, I just reverse the process. Visioneer built Command Shift-9 into the software to toggle the PaperPort on-and-off.
The PaperPort is small and designed to easily fit between your keyboard and computer. Since the PaperPort has no on/off switch, you can start the software by feeding a document into the scanner or double-clicking the PaperPort icon. I found it much easier to feed a document into the PaperPort, which automatically senses the paper in front of it and launches the software. Once you have scanned in a document and it is placed on the PaperPort 'desktop', you'll finally experience how useful the PaperPort software is.
You can select Page View and add various annotations using the Annotation toolbar. I found the Highlighter tool to be great because I could highlight text in several diff- erent colors (just like the highlighters I used back in my school days). The Sticky Note tool lets you add sticky notes to the document much in the same way you would in your office, except these sticky notes can easily be resized to fit the space where you want to put them. There is also a Freehand tool to circle or underline, an Arrow tool to add an arrow or line, and a Mark-Up tool to add text. This is useful for filling out forms or applications that need to be faxed.
 
The PaperPort Desktop
You can fax, print, or edit the document. On the PaperPort desktop, there are a printer icon, fax icon, and text icon. These let you conveniently drag-and-drop documents to perform that particular function. If you want to fax a scanned document, drag-and-drop the scanned image onto the fax icon. PaperPort will then launch your fax software and fax the scanned document. If you want to print a scanned document, drag-and-drop it onto the printer icon. I have my printer and PaperPort on the same port, so I need to turn off the PaperPort (command-shift-9) and manually switch to my printer before I drop the document onto the printer icon. I was concerned whether I would be able to successfully do this, but it worked without any problems. The quality of the scanned documents that I faxed and printed was good. The documents were clear and legible.
If you want to edit a scanned document, drag-and-drop it onto the text icon. This launches Calera Recognition Systems’ WordScan OCR (optical character recognition) software. You can select which word processing application that you want to view and edit the processed document. This can be an application like Microsoft Word or even SimpleText. The OCR software worked fairly well; the only significant problem repeatedly encountered was with recognition of the letter "H”. [Calera's WordScan OCR software is adequate for occasional and non-demanding work. If you are looking for high-volume character recognition, you may want to consider more powerful (and pricey) OCR software packages —Ed. ]
You can "stack" scanned documents in much the same way you would use a paperclip or staple. This lets you combine and organize related documents before you fax, print or save them. You can reorder the pages of a stack or insert a new page into an existing stack. I needed to fax several documents at once and was pleasantly surprised at how easily I could fax all of them together by dragging-and-dropping the stack on the fax icon. I even took a document created with PageMaker and added that to the stack. PaperPort can open, import and convert documents from other applications into a PaperPort document. Simply drag-and-drop the other document onto the PaperPort desktop, and you can then insert them into stacks already on the PaperPort desktop.
You can also "find" a particular document or annotation by using the Find File menu on the PaperPort desktop. You can search by file name or annotated text in a sticky note or mark-up, searching all the documents or only those in a particular time frame. This is a nice feature that helps you quickly locate that brochure, business card, newsletter or invoice you have scanned and put into your computer.
The only major drawback of the PaperPort is how RAM hungry it is. While the minimum required memory is 4MB RAM, Visioneer recommends 8-12MB if you use the OCR software. This can make things somewhat difficult for some users.
PaperPort is a wonderfully useful addition to your home or office Macintosh system, with surprisingly few drawbacks. At a suggested list price of $399, it’s an excellent value for a full-width desktop scanner.
