2011

• How To Set PDF Keywords In Microsoft Windows
  If you want to add keywords to your PDF files on Windows, here are some ways to do it.

• Introducing The Going Paperless Jumpstart Teleseminar
  Last year I had an hour long call where I answered your biggest questions on going paperless. It went pretty well, and the recording is still available.

• Choosing An Online Backup Service
  There are so many choices for online backup services out there, how do you choose which one?

2010

• Carbonite Introduces iPhone App
  It is funny how we expect online backup services to have mobile access now, but it was such a novel thing for Carbonite to do it back then.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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2011

• How To Find PDFs That Are Not Searchable
  If you want to find the PDFs on your computer that have not been OCR’ed here is how to do it.

• Reader Story: Accessing Documents On The Go
  This was the first of the popular reader stories series staring Brandon Smith from Oregon.

• Can You Read A Book In A Browser?
  Interesting how far e-Reading has come just in the last year. This was before the Kindle Cloud Reader.

2010

• How To Encrypt Evernote On Microsoft Windows

• How To Encrypt Evernote On Mac OSX
  Encrypting your data on Evernote is a common concern. Here are some things you can do.

• Windows 7 Update For Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 and S500 Is Now Available
  When Windows 7 came out, there were some issues with Fujitsu ScanSnaps. Eventually, they were cleared up with some software patches.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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2011

• How To Use An iPad In A Legal Setting
  An extremely thorough five-part series on how to use an iPad in a legal practice.

• Share Your Going Paperless Stories
  A very popular series on DocumentSnap where readers share how they went, or are in the process of going, paperless. Very timely considering how popular case studies are.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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I did this at the end of 2010 too, and I found it was an incredibly helpful way to find out how I can help you in the year ahead.

This year, I want to do something different and share the key results with you. I want to do this for two reasons:

1. If you going to share information with me, it’s only fair that you get to see the results.
2. Sometimes when you are stuck in the weeds of going paperless, or any life change, it can be helpful to know that you’re not alone.

In the surveys, I asked three key questions:

1. What is the biggest problem that you have right now with going paperless?
2. What would you like to see more of on the blog or newsletter?
3. What would you like to see less of on the blog or newsletter?

Let’s go through the results.

The Blog

What Is The Biggest Problem?

I have to admit, I found this result quite surprising.

By far I get the most questions about document organization (which is why I created the Paperless Document Organization Guide), so I was quite surprised that “finding the time to scan and process” was an equal concern.

Another common question I get, which is represented here, is convincing others that going paperless is a good idea. It can definitely be hard when everyone at home or in the office is not on the same page.

What Would You Like To See More Of?

I hear you. You want to see more stories and examples of people who have gone paperless and how they did it.

In 2011 I started the popular DocumentSnap Reader Stories series, but in 2012 I will try to reach out more and get some more workflow examples for you.

What Would You Like To See Less Of?

For the most part, I received comments like “some posts don’t apply to me, but I know they help other people so I just ignore them and move on to the next one.”

Not surprisingly, some Mac users would like to see less Windows posts and some Windows users would like to see less Mac posts. I do my best to keep it as balanced as possible, but if you think I sway too far one way or the other, just let me know.

The Newsletter

If you don’t know, I share an entirely different set of going-paperless tips each week in the Paper Cuts Newsletter. Also, when I have a new product or service coming out, I usually let readers there know about it first with some specials.

I asked a similar set of questions to the newsletter readers, and here is what they had to say.

What Is The Biggest Problem?

The results here are similar to the blog, but I found it interesting that general comfort-with-going-digital and tackling the backlog scored higher.

It’s pretty clear that in 2012, I need to focus more on some way to help with helping you find the time to do paperless processing.

What Would You Like To See More Of?

Case studies and organization are the biggies here.

It looks like Mac users are highly represented in newsletter respondents, as they want to see more discussion of Mac software. I do try to keep it balanced, but another theme I have seen is that readers want more help with software selection. Maybe I can do more there.

What Would You Like To See Less Of?

The usual suspects are here, but I did receive a few interesting comments that they’d like to see less of a North American focus.

Being from Canada, I know how annoying it can be when things are too United States-centric[1], so I will see what I can do to highlight more international tips, products, and services.

If you are from outside North America would like to help contribute in that regard, just let me know.

So there you go, you can see what I will try to focus on in the year ahead. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or hit me up any time. Have a great 2012!

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Related posts:

1. The First DocumentSnap Reader Survey – Your Input Needed
2. The Second Annual DocumentSnap Reader Survey
3. Top Going Paperless Products Of 2011

2011

• Top 10 Going Paperless Products Of 2010
  The most popular products purchased through DocumentSnap in 2010. If you’re interested, the 2011 paperless list is here.

• Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 Review
  The ScanSnap S1100 was released this week last year, and I reviewed it.

2010

• Doing OCR Batch Processing Using The ScanSnap And ABBYY FineReader
  A link to a helpful walkthrough of using Abbyy FineReader to do batch OCR.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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One unintended benefit is that I can run some reports and see what the most popular products are. I can’t see what you purchased, but I can see what products are sold in an anonymous, aggregate format.

Many people found last year’s list interesting, so here are the most paperless going-paperless products, eBooks, and DocumentSnap products that were purchased via my links in 2011.

Physical Products

The top 10 physical products for 2011 are:

1. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300. For the second year in a row, this is the most popular scanner. It hits the sweet spot of price, speed, and scans duplex and has a great document feeder. My review here.
2. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. Fujitsu’s powerful Windows desktop scanner. It is fast, holds a bunch of paper, and people swear by it.
3. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M. The Mac version of the S1500.
4. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100. Fujitsu’s new portable scanner that was released in 2011. My review here.
5. Fellowes W–11C Shredder. Fellowes’ 11-sheet cross-cut shredder.
6. Belkin F5L009 Network USB Hub. A network USB hub. Some people have reported good results using their scanner over the network with one of these.
7. Canon imageFORMULA P–150. Canon’s popular portable scanner with TWAIN support and Evernote integration.
8. Fellowes B–161C Shredder. Fellowes’ 16-sheet cross-cut shredder.
9. NeatDesk. Neat’s desktop scanner with receipt categorization software.
10. Doxie Go. The newest Doxie portable scanner that lets you scan without being plugged into a computer. My review here.

EBooks

The top 10 eBooks are:

1. Evernote®: The unofficial eBook to capturing everything and getting things done. Daniel Gold’s excellent (and recently updated) ebook about using Getting Things Done with Evernote. My review is here.
2. Evernote Essentials. If you want to master Evernote, this book by Brett Kelly is hard to beat. My review is here.
3. Take Control Of Your Paperless Office. An extremely comprehensive guide to going paperless by Joe Kissell. My review is here.
4. Take Control Of Getting Started With Devonthink 2. I point people to this guide when they ask me about Devonthink. Also by the ridiculously prolific Joe Kissell.
5. Take Control of Backup Up Your Mac. The name says it all. What do you know, it’s by Joe Kissell!
6. Take Control Of PDFPen 5. PDFPen is a great Mac application for working with PDFs, and this is a good guide if you want to master it. By Michael E. Cohen.
7. Take Control of TextExpander. I use TextExpander all day every day, and this guide will help you become a TextExpander ninja. Also by Michael E. Cohen.
8. It’s All Too Much. Not about going paperless specifically, but it is a great book by Peter Walsh about clutter in general and dealing with the emotional aspects.

DocumentSnap Products

2011 was the first year that I created some of my own products and courses. In case you are curious, here are the most popular ones:

1. The Unofficial ScanSnap Setup Guide – Mac. The Mac version of the guide won the top spot, but not by as much as I had expected.
2. Paperless Document Organization Guide – Specialist. As you can tell, this is by far the most popular version of the Paperless Document Organization Guide.
3. The Unofficial ScanSnap Setup Guide – Windows. The Windows version of the popular ScanSnap guide.
4. Paperless Document Organization Guide – Practitioner. The version of the Paperless Document Organization Guide without the videos or Paperless Action Plan recordings.
5. Paperless Action Plan. In October and November I ran a month long course all about going paperless. It was popular, so look for it to make a return soon.
6. Paperless Document Organization Guide – Master. The “premium” version of the Paperless Document Organization Guide that includes the recordings from the last Paperless Action Plan.
7. Going Paperless Jumpstart Teleseminar. In February, I did a call with a group of DocumentSnap readers to answer questions. The recording is available for purchase.
8. The Unofficial ScanSnap Setup Guide – Combo. Includes both the Mac and Windows versions, for you cross-platform folks.

Thank you again for supporting the site in 2011, and I hope you find this list as interesting as I did. This year, look for more content on a wider range of scanners, and more how-to information.

If you have any questions or thoughts about this list, head on down to the comment section.

(Photo by johnrawlinson)

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2010

• Use Genius Scan To Be An iPhone Scanning Genius
  This was my first foray into the world of iPhone scanning apps. Genius Scan is still a great, free choice.

• Business Card Battle
  A comparison of online business card merchants. Not exactly paperless, I know.

2009

• Use Paperless Post Instead of Mailing Out a Card This Year
  If you don’t want to send a paper card, Paperless Post has classy electronic cards.

• Great Paperless Workflow Post At Interface Matters
  A pointer to a great paperless workflow post.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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2010

• OCR Smackdown: ABBYY FineReader vs. Adobe Acrobat
  I did a comparison of the abilities of the two OCR packages that come with the ScanSnap scanners.

• Use Time Machine To Backup To A Windows Or Linux Computer
  If, for some reason, you want to use Time Machine to back up your Mac to another operating system, it can apparently be done.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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2010

• How To Fix PDF Search In Windows 7 64-Bit
  One of the biggest posts on DocumentSnap, it turns out that 64-bit Windows 7 has PDF contents search broken by default. Oops! Here’s how to fix it.

• Evernote Gets Stacks
  Evernote released the ability to “sort of” create a notebook/sub-notebook structure.

2009

• What’s Inside That PDF Document?
  Nice geeky look at the inner workings of a PDF document.

(Photo by Ayleen Gaspar)

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OK, maybe a shredder isn’t the sexiest gift there is, but if you know someone that is constantly throwing paper with their personal information into the trash, maybe this would be just the hint they need.

Aside from identity theft protection, imagine how fun it would be adding all that shredded paper to the mess in your living room after all the presents are unwrapped!

Here are a few options:

Fellowes B161-C

• Who is it for?: Home or small business owners that want medium-duty cross-cut shredding and the ability to shred CDs
• How much paper per pass?: 16 sheets
• How fast is it?: 10 feet per minute
• How about run time?: 18 minutes
• How big is the basket?: 8 gallons
• Where can I buy it?
  Amazon

Royal Machines 112MX

• Who is it for?: Home users that wants light-duty cross-cut shredding
• How much paper per pass?: 12 sheets
• How big is the basket?: 3.25 gallons
• Where can I buy it?
  Amazon

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