Business card scanners bring order to a desktop in disarray
By PAUL TAYLOR
27 October 2006

I gave up the dream of a paperless office years ago and settled for the more practical target of an organised desk. I have yet to achieve even this modest ambition. But not for want of trying.

When I began my drive for a cleaner desktop in the mid-1990s, the first thing I did was to install a business card scanner called CardScan Executive ( www.cardscan.com ) from Corex Systems.

It allowed me to capture and organise the data from my business cards in digital form. Since then, CardScan has improved both the hardware and software components of CardScan Executive, and launched a portable version as well as one aimed at workplace teams.

The latest version of CardScan Executive (v. 8) costs Dollars 260 (Pounds 199) and includes an updated, sleek desktop colour scanner and a Windows-based software bundle that combines optical character recognition software - optimised for the great variety of business cards - and an easy-to-use contact management database.

The software synchronises easily with a range of personal information managers and contact management suites, including Microsoft Outlook, ACT!, Lotus Notes and GoldMine.

Scanning a business card takes three seconds. Then the OCR software gets to work interpreting the image and putting each component - name, address, phone number and so on - into the right database field. It does not get it right every time but the software is adept at interpreting even the most complex business cards. And it beats manually entering business card data.

Users can also capture and manage contact data from other sources such as e-mail and websites.

CardScan is an excellent tool for anyone who collects a lot of business cards and needs an integrated contact database.

I have also been testing ascanner-based tool called NeatReceipts Scanalizer 2.5 ( www.neatreceipts.com ), which was launched this month.

It comprises a slim desktop colour scanner weighing 10.6 ounces and the length of a ruler - small and light enough to take on business trips - and document management software.

Though designed originally to help users capture and manage receipts, NeatReceipts can now organise all types of household and office documents including insurance or tax documents, bills, children's artwork, report cards, product warranties and recipes, and any other paper up to 8.5" wide x 30" long.

Captured documents are automatically organised in a searchable database so that users can easily retrieve them or turn them into a standard PDF file ready to print out or send as an e-mail attachment.

The OCR software goes a step further, capturing data (the date, the total, the vendor name, whether you used your credit card or cash from receipts) and organising it into spreadsheet format that can be exported into programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Excel or Quicken.

I found the software pretty accurate, even when it was handling the small thermal receipts generated by some printers such as those in New York taxis. Unfortunately, NeatReceipts Scanalizer is only available in the US, where it costs Dollars 230.

If you are looking for a general purpose document management package capable of handling larger volumes efficiently, Nuance Communications' ScanSoft PaperPort Professional 11 should be on your short-list.

For several months I have been testing the latest version of this venerable Dollars 165 (Pounds 100) package, which lets you capture, organise, file and search large volumes of digitised documents generated by a Lexmark scanner/printer.

Surveys suggest that many potential users are put off by overly complex applications that require IT support. The latest version of PaperPort addresses these issues by making the software faster and easier to use with an improved interface and step-by-step "how to" guides.

Among the new features in version 11 is the option to assign a single button on a scanner to launch PaperPort and process the digital output. Other new features include a capture assistant designed to make multi-page scanning easier and the automatic creation of meaningful document names.