The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: moustacheverte on October 12, 2015, 06:17:28 PM
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Hi Mustachians!
We are facing a conundrum. We are decluttering, preparing for an upcoming move and there are a ton of papers we need to keep either for tax purposes or insurance purposes etc. But we don't want to keep stacks of paper because we can't ever find the one we're looking for when we need it anyway. Plus shredding paper is fun.
I heard of an app that archives any document you shoot with your phone's camera but I can't remember the name. I would ideally like it to do OCR so you can search for the document using plain text without having to manually tag everything, free is even better. I'm tech savvy so if there is a bit of setup it's fine.
What apps do you use to archive, sort and later find your official receipts and documents?
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
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I use TurboScan for recipes, business cards, important receipts and so forth:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/turboscan-document-receipt/id342548956?mt=8
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
Does the scanner integrate with CamScanner somehow? I mentionned OCR so it can recognize the document's contents and attach this as metadata to the image to make searching easier. I think what you are mentioning has more to do with scanning the document on your computer, extracting the text from it, discarding the image and keeping only the text; right?
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I use TurboScan for recipes, business cards, important receipts and so forth:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/turboscan-document-receipt/id342548956?mt=8
Thanks but it seems to be iPhone only?
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
Does the scanner integrate with CamScanner somehow? I mentionned OCR so it can recognize the document's contents and attach this as metadata to the image to make searching easier. I think what you are mentioning has more to do with scanning the document on your computer, extracting the text from it, discarding the image and keeping only the text; right?
Sorry, I should have been more clear.
CamScanner and the Canon scanner are completely separate things.
CamScanner theoretically has OCR if you get the licensed version, but I've never used it so I can't speak to how well it works. I mentioned it as a phone app that might meet your requirements.
When I use the Canon scanner, I just scan the documents in, save them as PDF, and am done with it. The PDFs are OCR'd, but my main use is for searching. I keep the 'original' scan pdf incase I need to print things (it's happened), and shred the paper hardcopy. I have a folder on my computer that is assorted documents I might one day need to look at again.
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I use TurboScan for recipes, business cards, important receipts and so forth:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/turboscan-document-receipt/id342548956?mt=8
YES! I use TurboScan and recommend it 100%. However, it will be time consuming for a ton of documents. I would recommend an actual machine if you're going to do a ton of scanning... maybe someone has one you can borrow?
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A proper scanner is best if you have a lot of documents.
But I have used Genius Scan and Evernote - both are great.
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
Does the scanner integrate with CamScanner somehow? I mentionned OCR so it can recognize the document's contents and attach this as metadata to the image to make searching easier. I think what you are mentioning has more to do with scanning the document on your computer, extracting the text from it, discarding the image and keeping only the text; right?
Sorry, I should have been more clear.
CamScanner and the Canon scanner are completely separate things.
CamScanner theoretically has OCR if you get the licensed version, but I've never used it so I can't speak to how well it works. I mentioned it as a phone app that might meet your requirements.
When I use the Canon scanner, I just scan the documents in, save them as PDF, and am done with it. The PDFs are OCR'd, but my main use is for searching. I keep the 'original' scan pdf incase I need to print things (it's happened), and shred the paper hardcopy. I have a folder on my computer that is assorted documents I might one day need to look at again.
With the Canon scanner, do you use the bundled app? How does it attach OCR to the documents? I'm asking to determine whether I'd be locked in Canon's app to archive my documents or if I could switch should Canon discontinue the app or a better one comes along. Also, are you Mac or Windows?
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
Does the scanner integrate with CamScanner somehow? I mentionned OCR so it can recognize the document's contents and attach this as metadata to the image to make searching easier. I think what you are mentioning has more to do with scanning the document on your computer, extracting the text from it, discarding the image and keeping only the text; right?
Sorry, I should have been more clear.
CamScanner and the Canon scanner are completely separate things.
CamScanner theoretically has OCR if you get the licensed version, but I've never used it so I can't speak to how well it works. I mentioned it as a phone app that might meet your requirements.
When I use the Canon scanner, I just scan the documents in, save them as PDF, and am done with it. The PDFs are OCR'd, but my main use is for searching. I keep the 'original' scan pdf incase I need to print things (it's happened), and shred the paper hardcopy. I have a folder on my computer that is assorted documents I might one day need to look at again.
With the Canon scanner, do you use the bundled app? How does it attach OCR to the documents? I'm asking to determine whether I'd be locked in Canon's app to archive my documents or if I could switch should Canon discontinue the app or a better one comes along. Also, are you Mac or Windows?
With the Canon scanner, the OCR is embedded in the PDF, so it is readable by any PDF reader.
I've mainly used the Canon scanner with OSX 10.9, though it is supposed to be Windows 7 compatible. I use the bundled app, though presumably if the appropriate drivers are installed, one could use something else. I haven't really investigated, since it meets my needs very well and works much better than the OSX scanner software.
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I've occasionally used CamScanner (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner), and it came highly recommended to me by academic researchers who need to take photos of original documents for later perusal. However, I've never really made heavy use of it, mostly because my phone camera just doesn't take that great of photos. This is probably more like what you want.
The main thing I use is Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner (http://amzn.to/1jtqUOx). It does double-sided scanning, OCR has worked well for everything I've ever tried to use it for, and scans quickly. It was defs a more spendy purchase, but given that I can barely get the scanner on my printer to work for me 90% of the time, it was worth it to me. I bought it on the recommendation of The Wirecutter. It looks like they've since updated their recommendations (http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/scanners-printers-2/) for both the fancypants and cheap categories of standalone scanners.
Does the scanner integrate with CamScanner somehow? I mentionned OCR so it can recognize the document's contents and attach this as metadata to the image to make searching easier. I think what you are mentioning has more to do with scanning the document on your computer, extracting the text from it, discarding the image and keeping only the text; right?
Sorry, I should have been more clear.
CamScanner and the Canon scanner are completely separate things.
CamScanner theoretically has OCR if you get the licensed version, but I've never used it so I can't speak to how well it works. I mentioned it as a phone app that might meet your requirements.
When I use the Canon scanner, I just scan the documents in, save them as PDF, and am done with it. The PDFs are OCR'd, but my main use is for searching. I keep the 'original' scan pdf incase I need to print things (it's happened), and shred the paper hardcopy. I have a folder on my computer that is assorted documents I might one day need to look at again.
With the Canon scanner, do you use the bundled app? How does it attach OCR to the documents? I'm asking to determine whether I'd be locked in Canon's app to archive my documents or if I could switch should Canon discontinue the app or a better one comes along. Also, are you Mac or Windows?
With the Canon scanner, the OCR is embedded in the PDF, so it is readable by any PDF reader.
I've mainly used the Canon scanner with OSX 10.9, though it is supposed to be Windows 7 compatible. I use the bundled app, though presumably if the appropriate drivers are installed, one could use something else. I haven't really investigated, since it meets my needs very well and works much better than the OSX scanner software.
That clarifies, thank you.