Where find scan/document management info?

[George]

Wondered if there's a group somewhere that discusses systems for document
management aka document imaging, image capture, scannning, etc. (MS groups
are sparse on this topic, except brief mention here or there). Need a
neutral group, not a software or scanner-hardware group, and not white
papers--there are lots of these "how to" but no place to ask questions and
discuss latest things like what's the best software, and where can I get a
high speed, reasonably priced scanner.

Would like to set up a moderate cost desktop-PC system to quickly scan
thousands of filed-away business document pages into digital (probably pdf),
and archive them, to save space as well as retrieve very fast if needed.
Would seem this is simple, but turns out there are many issues, standards,
decisions...and prices are all over the board for things like scanners ($99
to $20,000) and software ($99 to $millions). Looking for a newsgroup that
deals with off-the-shelf solftware, scanners, and how-to for a good quality
desktop-PC business office system.

 

[John]

Interestingly enough my post above your was just about
that. Let's collobrate on some ideas here. I think that
Office 2003 has some solutions but don't know if anyone
tested them.
Thanks,
Ron

 

[George]

Great to hear, I was unaware of an Office 2003 solution. Welcome any
feedback on Outlook 2003, or other solutions, and/or newsgroups.

Only thing is, if we're going to invest time and work to create paperless
archives, let's do it right, so I need solid capabilities like some of the
mature products have, so we can do a great job, beyond simple "small office"
scan-and-go. Takes a combo of software and hardware. Don't know, but think
the better solutions include things like skew correction, scuzi connections,
files that are ready-for-OCR (at time of scan or in future using source
file), lots of control over the scanner, light/dark/pencil, rearrange and
combine pages from different pdf files, etc., etc. Think Adobe Acrobat has
a place in here somewhere.

Seems like the scanning thing is about to take off as a mainstream way for
archvie-and-retrieve for just about everybody who's got more than a few
papers.

The BIG show stopper I've hit, though, is the price of a high speed scanner.
Unless you've got untold weeks to use a famliy-grade all-in-one, high speed
is necessary and seems like it's around $3-5K for 30-40 ppm, or $8-12K for
really fast like 80 ppm. Was hoping for $1-2K, but looks doubful until
prices drop...which might take years.