This is a Guest Post from my friend Amy Payne, a Professional Organizer at Lasting Order.
{First off, I want to thank Brooks Duncan for inviting me to write a guest post for DocumentSnap! My name is Amy Payne and I own a professional organizing company out of Southwest Indiana called Lasting Order. I met Brooks at the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) Conference in New Orleans in April. We discovered a common love for all things technology and Evernote, which brings me to the topic of today’s post – how to scan directly into Evernote using NeatDesk.}
When you purchase a NeatDesk document scanner, it comes with Neat software and the option to purchase monthly cloud services. I prefer to use Evernote, so I uncovered a way to use Evernote with the Neat scanner. It is possible to bypass the Neat software and use Evernote for document storage instead. Evernote is free (or $5 per month for the Premium membership) and the Neat Cloud service is $15 per month. Evernote has better features for a lower price, so for me it’s the obvious choice. {I love free or cheap solutions!}
So, you want to use a NeatDesk scanner and bypass the software to use Evernote instead. Here’s the step-by-step instructions on how to do it: {I’m using a PC, so your screens may look slightly different if you are using a Mac.}
Open the Neat scanning software & change settings to match the item(s) you want to scan.
Scan to a PDF. If you click “scan” without selecting the PDF option, it will scan into the Neat software. When you select the scan to PDF option, it will prompt you to select a location to save the document to.
Create a folder on your computer for scanned documents you want imported into Evernote. I labeled mine “For Evernote”. {very creative, I know}
Name the document and hit “Save”. The document will scan and be saved into the “For Evernote” folder. You can rename the document once it’s in Evernote, so you don’t have to worry about scanning multiple items at once. It will automatically save them with sequential numbers. {For example, when I return from a Chamber of Commerce meeting, I can put up to 15 business cards into the scanner at once and name them Chamber and the date. It will automatically name them “Chamber date 1”, “Chamber date 2”, etc.}
Open Evernote. Click on “Tools”, then “Import Folders”.
Click “Add” and locate the “For Evernote” folder on your computer. Select it and hit “okay”.
Once you’ve added it to the import list, you can select which notebook to import the notes into. I put all scanned items into my -Inbox folder, so I can organize them once they are in Evernote. You can also select whether to keep or delete the source file after it’s imported and whether to import subfolders or not.
That’s it {it’s that easy}! You can access all of the documents you scanned directly from Evernote. Be sure to tag and organize them into notebooks and stacks. Once you’ve started using Evernote, you’ll want to access it from all of your devices… so be sure to download the app on each device! Remember: if you are scanning financial documents or otherwise sensitive information, you may want to consider importing your “For Evernote” folder into a local notebook instead of a synced notebook. If you need further instruction or information about how to scan and organize using NeatDesk and Evernote, please contact me via phone or e-mail!
Thanks Amy! Unfortunately the Mac version of Evernote doesn’t have Import Folders for some weird reason, but something similar can be done with Hazel.