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As mentioned in my NeatDesk review, Neatco sent me a review copy of their NeatDesk For Mac scanner. I liked the scanner, but even more so I liked the NeatWorks software so I decided to do a separate review.

This review is for the NeatWorks for Mac version. I don’t know to what extent the Windows version is different, but hopefully they are similar.   

For some reason I don’t quite get, NeatWorks for Mac can be purchased on its own, but NeatWorks for Windows appears to only be available bundled with the NeatDesk or NeatReceipts scanner. Kinda wacky.

Installing

Before plugging in the scanner, I installed the software by popping in the CD. It installed like most any other program, and when it first ran, it prompted me to update which I did. I’m now running Version 2.1.4 (214017).

When it first ran, the first thing it did was notice that I was running ScanSnap Manager and asked me if I wanted to configure the ScanSnap to send scans into NeatWorks. Hmm, interesting. I’ll save that one for another post.

Running The First Time

The first time you run it, it takes you to a welcome screen. I found the video tour very helpful, so I recommend that for sure.

Libraries & Collections

With NeatWorks, you can have a number of different Libraries. You can think of a Library as a top-level repository. You can either just put everything into one Library, or have say a Business Library, a Personal Library, etc.

A collection is a group within one particular Library. By default, NeatWorks creates a Contacts, Receipts, and Documents Collection. You can add whatever Collections makes sense to you (Bills? Automotive?).

Scanning Options

There are a bunch of options you can set when you want to scan into NeatWorks.

You can do B&W or Color, have the scanned items go into your Inbox, the Current Collection, you’re working with, or straight to a PDF.

You can have a separate item for each page, or have it all-in-one, and you can choose Single Sided or Double Sided.

You can have NeatWorks analyze (more on that later) the whole document, just the first page or not at all.

Processing

When you bring something into the NeatWorks Inbox, it analyzes it to try to find what kind of document it is. It tries to see if it is a Document, a Receipt, or a Contact (Business Card).

It then tries to analyze the content and see if it can fill in some of the (configurable) fields for you. For example, here is a receipt that I scanned in. Some of the fields auto-populated.

With business cards, it did quite a good job of picking out the company and contact information and auto-filling the fields.

Obviously, it’s not going to get everything. When that is the case, it has a wicked feature whereby you can drag OCR’ed text from the document into one of the fields. In this example, I dragged the store name to the Vendor field:

It’s not perfect, but it is a big time saver.

Document Management

From the Inbox, you can edit the information for each item and drag and drop them to the appropriate collection. You can crop, split pages, and (handy) can combine multiple documents into one.

The files are stored in the Library, which on OSX is a package that is saved by default in your ~/Documents directory.

If you Show Package Contents, you can see the individual PDFs in there, and from NeatWorks you can export any or all files to PDF, CSV, or Quicken.

I know some people will not like having their documents stored in this proprietary NeatWorks library file. It’s up to you whether that is an issue or not.

Searching

There are multiple ways that you can search for information. You can type in the Search box and that will search through fields and OCR’ed text in the current Library.

You can hit the Browse button and browse by any of the fields associated with your items. For example, say you knew the rough date. You could browse like this:

NeatWorks also has a nifty “ScreenFlow” mode that shows your documents in a CoverFlow-like view:

Finally, it integrates with Spotlight. So, on the Mac, you can do a search for any of the text inside your document and it will bring it up in NeatWorks:

Printing To NeatWorks

In addition to manually importing or scanning, there is another cool way to add things to NeatWorks. Say you’ve received an email receipt and you want to save it. The program adds some options in the Print To PDF menu:

You can tell it if it is a Document, a Contact, or A Receipt right from your email program (or wherever) and it imports it, OCRs it, and Analyzes it. Awesome.

What Could Be Improved?

Nothing’s perfect and NeatWorks is no exception. The first issue is the speed. When you scan something, it starts the OCR and Analyze process right away. This can be somewhat slow (as with any OCR), and there is a lot of chugging along if you are scanning a bunch of documents. It would be great if you could batch-OCR later.

Also, it would be great if there was the concept of “Profiles”, so that you could have some predefined groups of settings that you could more easily flip back and forth between.

The Bottom Line

I am very impressed with Neatco’s NeatWorks. In a separate post, I will be exploring how to make the two worlds collide and use NeatWorks with the ScanSnap. Stay tuned.

Have you used NeatWorks? What did you think of it?

I just got back from a quick road trip to Portland (love Powell’s), and I had a nice surprise waiting- a review copy of the NeatDesk scanner from Neatco. There is a Mac and Windows version, and I will be reviewing the Mac version.

I’ve gotten a number of requests from readers asking me to check out the NeatDesk scanner and NeatWorks software, so I’m thrilled that Neatco came through and sent me one to check out for you guys.

This review will be done in three parts- the NeatDesk scanner, the NeatWorks software, and (sorry Neatco) how to use the NeatWorks software with the ScanSnap scanner.

Setting Up The NeatDesk

I shot a quick unboxing video that shows what is in the box. Here you go:

Setting the NeatDesk up was pretty simple. There is a paper exit tray that does not actually attach to the scanner; it just sits under it. So you put down the exit tray:

Then sit the NeatDesk on top:

Then, you install the included NeatWorks software, and plug everything in.

Calibration

The first thing the instructions say to do after setting up the NeatDesk is running Calibration. In fact, in the Quick Start Guide, they actually give you special calibration sheet that they recommend that you use:

I put in the calibration sheet and clicked the Calibrate button onscreen, and the process started:

At that point, I hit my first snag (well, second if you don’t count the fact that I didn’t notice the power button). The paper started feeding through, made some noises, and than halfway through… nothing. Both lights were blinking green but nothing was happening, and eventually they turned to both blinking red.

I did some searching on NeatCo’s forum and found that some Mac users were experiencing the double-blinking issue when doing multi-page scans. I tried calibrating again and this time it worked perfectly, and I didn’t hit the issue again.

Paper Input Tray

The NeatDesk has a pretty cool feature – a paper input tray that can separate out documents, receipts, and business cards. With the tray in, it can take 10 documents, 10 receipts, and 10 business cards.

If you scan mostly documents, it probably makes sense to take that out which is very easy to do. Once you take it out, it holds 50 documents.

Scanning Different Documents

As a first test, I scanned a stack of documents of different sizes, and 2 receipts, and 3 business cards using the paper input tray.

The scanning went quite well. Speed was decent, and the resulting images were excellent quality. There was one issue- it picked up the 2 receipts at the same time, which is a bit of a drag.

Here’s a video of the test:

By the way, one annoying thing. In the help it says (in bold no less) to scan the paper face down, but you actually have to do it face up.

Long Receipt Test

My ScanSnap S300M does not like long receipts, and threw an error message when I tried scanning one particular one. I tried the same receipt in the NeatDesk scanner, and while it didn’t throw an error, it didn’t scan the whole receipt either. It just cut off 2/3 of the way down.

Software

The NeatDesk comes with one piece of software called NeatWorks, which is also available separately (for the Mac anyways).

I will do a separate post about NeatWorks, but in short, I really like the program. It attempts to read and classify the documents that scan in, and while that part of it isn’t perfect, at least it is a start. The OCRing and Spotlight integration (on the Mac) is cool too.

Because I Know You’re Going To Ask…

Obviously the question everyone will be asking is “how does it compare to the ScanSnap?”. Since I only have a ScanSnap S300M and not the S1500M, I didn’t think it was fair to do a side by side. I do have a few thoughts however.

The NeatDesk is a great scanner and I like it a lot. Is it as fast as the ScanSnap? No, the ScanSnap is a bit faster, especially when scanning color.

I think Neatco could improve the simplicity aspect too. With the ScanSnap, you install the software, plug it in, and hit one button and you’re going. With the NeatDesk, having to line up the exit tray, plug it in, turn on the power switch (which the ScanSnap doesn’t have), then go through the whole calibration thing is a bit of a hassle.

Having said that, the NeatDesk does have some improvements. The paper input tray is a great idea for keeping paper types separate. I really like how they included the cleaning cloth with the scanner- awesome touch.

The best part, in my opinion, is the tight integration with NeatWorks, which is a great program.

I also like how in the quickstart guide, Neatco has a “Community” page which outlines the support options, forums, tutorials, live chat, etc. It just gives the impression that if you have any questions or issues, Neatco would be there.

Do you have the NeatDesk scanner? How do you like it?

Photo by caterina

When you have an office, buying a printer usually isn’t even something you would think about. It’s just one of those things you need. Or do you?

The Paper Jammed blog has a series of articles asking that very same question.

To me, Part 2 is the most interesting one. If you only print occasionally, the author makes the case that you can get away with not having a printer at all.

The first option he goes through is printing online, and does a runthrough of using Fedex Kinkos and Staples online printing services.

The second, of course, is taking your thumb drive to the local office center.

In my opinion, he makes a pretty compelling case. Have you ever used an online printing service? How did it work out for you?

Some time ago, I wrote an article called Paper Misfeed Problems With Your ScanSnap? It Might Be Your Consumables.

To go along with that, Fujitsu has posted a video stepping you through the process.

So, if you need to replace your pad assembly or your pick roller, this should help.

It’s great to see companies using media like this in such a helpful way.

Many of you might be familiar with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week.

He has talked about getting a Fujitsu ScanSnap before, but the other day on Twitter he ran into a problem:

Here is the error he was getting:

I have to say, the solution he came up with isn’t one I would have thought of:

So there you go. If you get the TIme-out occurred during communications. (0xd0020004) error, try rolling the pick rollers. Or, call Tim Ferriss.

As you may know, when I want to OCR a bunch of PDFs at once as part of my scanning workflow, I use an Applescript droplet to have Adobe Acrobat OCR the files.

The other day I came across this blog post from Jonathan Bowman over at Adobe. He shows how to use a feature of Acrobat that I didn’t notice before: Batch Processing.

He has screenshots showing how it works, but I thought I would put together this video that shows how I set it up.

The nice thing about it is the process is pretty much the same whether you use Mac or PC.

By the way, there are a ton of things you can use Batch Processing for, not just making PDFs searchable. I will definitely be poking around in there.

Do you use Acrobat Batch Processing for anything?