Here's a fun little weekend project: go completely paperless with your Mac. By doing so, you can finally get rid of that filing cabinet and get into the digital groove with the help of a scanner and a few utility apps.
Read and we'll discuss the hardware and software that you need to go paperless, along with tips for converting your physical files into digital ones, encrypting them, and storing them in the cloud.
Going paperless has a few things going for it. First of all, you eliminate clutter when you scan in receipts and things and store them on your hard drive rather than in a shoebox under your desk. Secondly, if you run a small business from home or just need an easy-to-access archive, it's easier to store and search important documents this way rather than filing them away in a filing cabinet.
As for downsides, well, there's always the fear that your hard drive will crash and lose everything. But, that's why we back up our important documents once, twice over.
You'll need a few tools and applications to help you make the switch. The first of which is a good scanner, and either of these will do. The second is an arsenal of applications to help you get started. If you decided to go with something like the Neat Receipts scanner, then you should already be set with some very basic software. But if you already have a scanner and no software to accompany it, read on.
Paperless is especially one of our favorite applications because it was created specifically for users looking to scan their documents into the digital sphere. Paperless has an iTunes-style interface that lets you easily scan single or multi-page documents into an archive. You can sort those files using categories and tags, and set up Smart Folders. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer any online storage options, which is why you'd go with the next application...
Evernote stores your documents across multiple computers and iOS devices. It's the only cross-platform application featured in this article that also lets you access your data through your iOS (or Android) device. As an added bonus, the paid Evernote plan lets you store as many documents as you want in the cloud. You can upload virtually anything, and it's all searchable within the cloud. The only caveat is that the free version offers only limited uploads per month, and there's no direct scan-to feature. And if you're looking for privacy, Evernote only encyrpts plain text, which is a bummer if you prefer PDFs.
For a cheaper alternative to Paperless, and something that's not as simple as Evernote, Yep! is a great tool for easily organizing scanned PDFs, images, and anything else you need to archive. It has a clean interface and though it doesn't archive your things in list-view, it organizes everything with tags and categories. You can then search by tag, category, title, or even through the OCR’d document to find exactly what you’re looking for. Like Evernote, Yep! doesn't have any built-in security options, nor does it offer cloud storage, but it's cheaper than Paperless and good for mass storage of crucial documents.
There are many different types of scanning solutions, from all-in-one printers to standalone scanners. We prefer the latter because standalone scanners are typically higher quality than those found on all-in-one solutions, and because they are more portable.
Right now, our favorite line of scanners is the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners. Ranging from a smaller, more portable scanner (S1100), to more business-style scanners, the ScanSnap line has something for everyone. If you are considering the purchase of a new scanner, you may want to take a look at a ScanSnap. Also, there are the Doxie Go and NeatReceipts scanners.
Optical Character Recognition, OCR, is a tool that will extract only the words from a scan. OCR has two main uses when scanning documents: first, it can automatically make your PDFs searchable, and second, it can convert your scanned documents into plain-text ready for you to paste into Word or Pages to re-create the scanned document.
Many scanning applications usually come with OCR, but if your scanner doesn’t have OCR capabilities, or you don’t wish to purchase an OCR application separately, you can still use a service like Evernote to make the scanned images searchable after the fact.
You need to scan in your documents at a DPI (dots-per-inch) resolution of at least 200 dpi for color/grayscale, and at least 400 dpi for black and white scans. Remember, however, that setting the resolution too high will lead to larger file sizes. Some scanners, such as the ScanSnap line, have the ability to automatically set the resolution.
To scan a document in Paperless, insert your document into your scanner, and then press the “Scan” or “Scan Multi” buttons in the toolbar. The Scan button will perform a single-page scan, while the “Scan Multi” button will perform a multi-page scan.
When you click either button, your scanner interface will automatically appear and begin scanning your documents.
Click File > Scan New Document to open the scanning interface in Yep!. Select your scanner, and then press the Scan Page button to begin scanning the first page. You will need to swap out pages and then press the scan button again to scan another page into the PDF. When you have finished scanning, and have entered all of the metadata in the side panel, click the “Create PDF” button.
Evernote does not offer a scanning interface to automatically scan your documents within the application. However, you can drag and drop any documents scanned by your scanner app onto the Evernote icon to create a new document. Some scanners, including the ScanSnap, also allow you to scan directly into Evernote. Check to see if your scanner supports this feature.
If you plan to scan a lot of documents into your Mac, then you may want to take a look at an external storage solution (especially if you are using a portable Mac). External drive prices are becoming lower cost, and when you need a lot of storage, they are the way to go. Consider, too, cloud solutions like Dolly Drive.
Two of the tools that we’ve covered features built-in security features that let you hide your important scanned documents from prying eyes. Lets take a look at how Evernote and Paperless are able to secure your documents.
Unfortunately, Evernote only allows the encryption of plain text inside of a note. Luckily, if you have OCR software with your scanner, you can turn your document into plain text-ready to copy into a new Evernote note.
Once pasted into Evernote, select the text, and then right-click on the text and select “Encrypt Selected Text.”
In the new window that appears, type in a passphrase, and then reenter the passphrase to verify it. You can optionally enter a passphrase hint. Click OK when done.
The encrypted text will appear as small dots in the note. To decrypt it, click on the dots, and then select “Show Encrypted Text.” You will be prompted for the passphrase that you entered earlier, and then the text will be shown.
Paperless is a bit easier to configure for security. When creating a new Paperless library, check the “Encrypt library” checkbox. When you click the Create button, Paperless will ask for a passphrase to encrypt the library with (you will also need to specify this passphrase whenever you open an encrypted library).
Cory Bohon is a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.
wsanders123
August 06, 2012 at 7:37pm
If you have the print version of the Mac Life magazine, you can go to Coverleaf and continue the digital subscription for free. Coverleaf simply verifies you are a paid subscriber and gives you the digitial magazine for free. Previously, Future Publishing (MacLife publishers) bundled the print and digital copies together. Essentially, they 'pre verified' your status with Coverleaf for you. Now you have to complete the request for digital manually. Other than that, no change.
wsanders123
August 06, 2012 at 7:37pm
If you have the print version of the Mac Life magazine, you can go to Coverleaf and continue the digital subscription for free. Coverleaf simply verifies you are a paid subscriber and gives you the digitial magazine for free. Previously, Future Publishing (MacLife publishers) bundled the print and digital copies together. Essentially, they 'pre verified' your status with Coverleaf for you. Now you have to complete the request for digital manually. Other than that, no change.
trixit
March 12, 2012 at 8:14pm
@eebow421
If encryption is not provided by the doc app of your choice then opt for encrypting the entire computer (that is what we do). Or you can create encrypted DMG volume and have all your docs there. There are several options you can do to have your docs secured.
One app is doing this: the iDocument from IcyBlaze Software does encryption. You should look into it.
Good luck going paperless - it's worthy!
eebow421
March 12, 2012 at 5:16pm
@scdepatr; I agree whole heartedly!
I too paid the extra for the combo subscription only to be dismayed when I was forced to use the Coverleaf app to read the mag. Now that I have an iPad and Asus Transformer, I want to read ALL my subscriptions digitally, but it seems that the publishers don't want to support that in any fashion.
@Mac|Life; Let subscribers choose the version they which to receive - digital, print or both! AND give us the digital file of the mag rather than requiring a reader app like Coverleaf that isn't available for other OS's (like iOS or Android) on today's reader hardware. If I pay for the subscription, I want to keep the file I paid for.
@Article: I have wanted to go paperless for years, but have yet to find what I want. I have used trials of all the software mentioned in the article with the exception of NeatReceipts ($80). I have found fault with each, but I think that is related to my OCD nature of organization. NeatReceipts with the NeatDesk scanner looks very promising but they have a hefty price tag ($400).
Since I have mounds of personal military paperwork and family genealogy, I cannot / will not use any app that does not have adequate security / encryption. Once I read the Evernote user agreement (the fine print) and discovered that the company is authorized to use your data, I quit using the program and will never use it for anything important.
Otherwise, I currently use PDF for nearly every document I produce unless an external user needs a different format. With the built-in support for printing to PDF in MAC OS, I use a standardized file naming convention of my own making that tracks my documents. I'm able to search by the file name with Spotlight or other search mechanisms. The documents themselves are still not searchable as they would be with OCR.
trixit
March 18, 2012 at 9:05pm
@eebow421
If encryption is not provided by the doc app of your choice then opt for encrypting the entire computer (that is what we do). Or you can create encrypted DMG volume and have all your docs there. There are several options you can do to have your docs secured.
One app is doing this: the iDocument from IcyBlaze Software does encryption. You should look into it.
Good luck going paperless - it's worthy!
trixit
March 18, 2012 at 9:11pm
Hi guys!
I wanted to share our setup and day to day operations of our office.
We are a small office with 3 employees who use Macs. We have turned to paperless office over 2 years ago.
We are using Leap by Ironic Software, the makers of Yep, together with Dropbox on our MacBook Pro, Air and iMac. Computers run Lion and will be easily upgraded to Mountain Lion in the summer (our setup also worked great under Leopard and Snow Leopard).
You can get Leap, as well as Yep, on the Mac App Store. The reason we use Leap is because it works not only for PDFs, iWork, Word and Excel documents but for a wide variety of other file formats. Yep is limited in this regard but might work great for you. They are very similar apps. Try both, then decide.
Dropbox allows us to store docs in the cloud for easy access from mobile devices and easy sync in between the notebook and desktop computers. Dropbox also acts as a cloud backup storage. If you accidentally delete a doc you have up to 30 days to restore it. So, if your computer crashes you can easily restore from Dropbox. In over 2 years we have never lost a document. Also, thanks to Dropbox syncing with all the computers we basically have "3 local copies" and one cloud copy (in Dropbox) of each document. On top of that the iMac is running Time Machine backup every hour and also has continuous online backup with BackBlaze - online backup made easy service. Yes, we are data cautious... lol
All docs are scanned with the push of a "scan" button on the scanner and automatically saved to one Dropbox folder. (We use PDF format. PDF has been here for ages and will be here for many, many more years. Governments, large and small businesses and individuals all around the world are using the PDF format for archival purposes. We are not worried about its longevity now. If something better comes in the future there will surely be an easy way to switch all the files to the new file format. But for now the benefits are much bigger than worrying what will happen to PDF in the future.)
We don't care about folder hierarchy or structure when we scan docs. All business docs are simply saved to one folder in Dropbox. We let ScanSnap automatically name documents when they are saved (example: 2012_01_13_12_34_18.pdf). The numbers represent date and time of scanning. Then, all docs are tagged and given a brief description in Leap for fast and easy finding.
Our scanner is $400 Fujitsu Scansnap S1500M. It's a great scanner!
Once the docs are scanned and verified the original paper is shredded and put for recycling.
One other thing: I was looking recently at iDocument app by IcyBlaze Software. I have been playing with it a little and it seems it could work well for us, too (if we wanted to switch in the future). However, it's also limited in the number of file formats it can work with just like Yep. You might be interested in trying it out! There is a free Lite version on the Mac App Store.
Now, do it and go paperless! We couldn't be happier as it saves a lot of time and space!
irritable
March 11, 2012 at 5:29am
There is way too much enthusiasm in the way this article has been presented.
It is all well and good with the concept of going paperless... however as with using any technological solution bear in mind that you need to be able to cope with the concept that things will inevitably change over time.
Don't ever assume that once the paper has been digitised it will be there and ACCESSIBLE forever. In order to keep your data valid it will need to be refreshed on a regular basis ... File formats change (who says that PDF is a viable long term solution?), storage media technology changes (remember: 8" diskettes, bernoulli drives, MFM/RLL winchester disks?), companies go out of business (a rather large company called Ashton Tate did wonderful databases in their day), companies change their operating system compatibility (Apple and the Lion/Rosetta PPC emulation uproar).
I would argue that: Yes, digitising paper makes sense for the sheer ability to sort, file, analyse and retrieve data quickly. But if you have a paper document of value that may be required in say 10, 50, 100 years time keep the original and archive it appropriately.
Surely we should have learnt from the Egyptians who used papyrus five thousand years ago. Those records are still readable today!
MaclifeUK
March 09, 2012 at 7:41pm
You don't necessarily need a scanner.
I use my digital camera, with flash and close-up setting, to photo receipts etc.
(Several, choose the best Q)And I do not trust my iMac to always be faithful, you can't beat having paper copies of most things, especially "What to do if your iMac fails, or there's a Power Cut" !!!
But yes, it is easier to search for documents and information on my iMac, using Spotlight, or 3rd party EasyFind.
But.... a Power Cut is the biggest danger to just storing information on your iMac.
And having your precious Data, and computer stolen of course.
Password protection is essential, login, firmware, PDF documents, Excel & Word documents, Home inventory photo's .dmg etc.
scdepatr
March 09, 2012 at 5:16pm
It would be great if you'd let me switch my print subscription to digital! Or at least let me read it digitally in addition to the print! I used to be able to read it on coverleaf but you've pulled that too! Why? I'd love to go paperless and just read my monthly MacLife digitally.
