PaperPort Now Archives Web Pages, Too

SUMMARY

PaperPort Deluxe 6.0 PRO: Very easy to use, lets you embed a viewer into image files. CON: Proprietary .max format that is required for annotation features prevents you from using the product's text search engine. VALUE: Inexpensive document manager for its capabilities. $50 ScanSoft 800/248-6550 www.scansoft.com

Document management software, which began as a way to organize scanned material, has since added functions such as the ability to combine scanned and electronic files into a searchable database. Now PaperPort, the perennially popular document manager from ScanSoft (formerly Visioneer) extends this capability to Web pages. PaperPort Deluxe 6.0, which I tested in final preproduction form, lets you save pages while you surf and displays them, along with other documents in its database, as thumbnails in a window. Click on a Web thumbnail, and the page appears in your browser.

PaperPort saves scanned documents in its proprietary .max bitmap format; no conversion is needed for text-based documents in popular word processing, spreadsheet, and other formats. You can share scanned .max documents with a colleague who doesn't use PaperPort by embedding the new Miniviewer in the files and e-mailing them as attachments. The viewer adds 200KB to each file but lets your coworkers see annotations, including sticky notes, scribbles on pages, or keywords for searches. Unfortunately, you can't annotate electronic text files without converting them to .max format--and then you can no longer use PaperPort's powerful text search engine.

To its credit, PaperPort can create a reusable electronic form from a scanned paper one. Powerful image-editing tools allow you to color-correct scanned photographs. And ScanSoft's excellent TextBridge optical character recognition software replaces Visioneer's marginally acceptable ProOCR application.

Despite some design flaws, PaperPort is an inexpensive, effective tool for filing, retrieving, and sharing documents--on paper, on your computer, and now on the Web.