

Ask HN: Tips for a paperless lifestyle? - mcrittenden

Looking for things like apps to upload scanned documents to (besides Evernote which lacks good Linux support), general workflow tips, apps for scanning receipts and possibly tracking expenses using them, etc.<p>Anyone have any tips or web apps you can recommend?
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yan
If you're serious about this, get a Fuji ScanSnap scanner (I have the S1500).
Scans about 15 double-sided pages per minute and converts to OCR'd PDFs.

Any new mail you receive, scan, shred (archive if important) and backup.

~~~
gyardley
Seconded.

I have the S1300 - it's slower than the S1500, but about half the weight and
you can power it off of your USB ports, so there's no need to lug around the
adapter.

Great if you're scanning in multiple locations. I use mine both at home and in
the office, and am delighted by the file cabinets I'm no longer steadily
filling.

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runjake
You probably don't use Windows 7, but I scan everything into TIFFs, which gets
dumped to my filesystem.

I then have an ifilter (a Windows search plugin for a file format) for TIFF
OCR, so I can do text searches on the scanned documents, using the built-in
Windows Search functionality of Windows 7. It works much the same as Spotlight
on Mac OS X.

Normally, I leave these scanned files in the dump directory, because the
current Windows 7 iteration of Windows Search is solid. But occasionally, I
use the "Libraries" feature of Windows 7 to organize things when they need to
be.

At some point, I need to insert "convert into PDF" into this process but I'm
lazy, It Just Works(tm), and haven't run out of disk space yet. PDFs would be
searchable, too.

I used to use Evernote, but it's too cumbersome. You could probably do
something very similar in Linux.

I'm cheap, so I occasionally bring my stack of papers to be scanned into work,
chuck them into the auto-feeder of my work's scanner, and press "Go".

If I wasn't cheap, I'd buy a Fujitsu SnapScan. They seem to be rock solid and
I know several people who swear by them. I wouldn't bother with the cheap
little units like Doxie, a digital camera might be cheaper, there.

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hallz
I would recommend using a credit card that lets you download your transactions
for tracking expenses. Unless you really need the detail of the individual
items from your purchases. I tried scanning all my reciepts and found it was a
waste of time, now I just scan reciepts for things that were over ~$100 that I
might need to return under warranty.

If you get a scanner make sure it has full-duplex (scans both sides of the
paper), A document feeder and is network based (beware cheaper models where
you still need a driver to make it work).

I have a Brother 8890DW, which has scan to email and (I believe) scan to ftp.

If you are low volume I would definitely look at the camera based scanning
options, then you can just use your phone.

As for management I just have a directory full of pdf's which I can search in
windows. Simple but effective.

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russjhammond
Bills - Make sure every bill you have is sent to you paperless. Some banks and
other firms have to send you paper statements until you ask for it to be
paperless.

Mail - Checkout Earth Class Mail which receives and scans your mail and even
deposits checks for you.

Office drop or Shoeboxed - service that sends you an envelope every month for
you to fill up. They scan and send you a PDF.

Regular writing - get an IPad and install Noteshelf, which let's you save
everything as a searchable PDF.

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marksu
Get the Doxie scanner <http://getdoxie.com/> ! It is fast and small, and great
for scanning a few documents every now and then. It comes with software that
is nicely integrated with the most common cloud services etc.

For me, my "paper load" was not big enough to warrant a bigger purchase of a
multiple-page scanner, so if you are still in the paper less minor leagues
like me, it is a great choice.

~~~
mhd
As far as I know there's no Linux support for the Doxie, so you're out of luck
there. The ScanSnaps, while being quite a bit more expensive and bigger do
have a decent support.

If we're only talking about the odd invoice, any normal scanner would do, too.
If you get one of those printer/scanner combinations, you'll also save some
space.

Yes, the app situation for Linux isn't that good. The Evernote web app alone
isn't as comfortable as a native application, and I haven't seen anything
decent out of the open source sector.

I'd recommend going a bit more low-tech. Create a script that invokes the
"scanimage" command with the desired parameters, then moves it to your "cloud"
directory (Dropbox, Ubuntu One etc.). There, run OCR software over it, dumping
the result in a file. If nothing major has changed, tesseract would be the
free OCR software of choice.

For simplicity's sake, I'd recommend that the script automatically chooses the
file name, you just add some "tags", e.g. if your script is called
"scan_stuff", you'd invoke it as "scan_stuff amazon invoice", and the result
would end up as "~/Dropbox/scans/2011-09-13-14-46-amazon-invoice.pdf",
alongside a "2011-09-13-14-46-amazon-invoice.txt" file generated from that.
This makes it easy enough to search by date or by a rather generic type.

The SANE scanimage command supports batch mode, even if you don't have an
automatic feeder (--batch-prompt).

This might not be as automatic as some of the specialized solutions for
Windows or Mac, but it does handle special cases a bit better. You can just
have a parameter or separate script for that and don't have to mess with
Preferences each time something slightly different comes in (e.g. color,
higher dpi, different target directory…).

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toot
I saved a blog post a few months ago about this.
<http://stevelosh.com/blog/2011/05/paper-free/>

I haven't made the jump myself yet, but the $218 result was:

    
    
        Doxie Scanner: $160
        JotNot: $7
        PDF OCR X: $30
        Hazel: $21
        Backblaze: $5 per month

------
gte910h
Fujitsu scansnap

------
Mz
From my job: Paperless fax, so documents can be faxed directly to/from your
computer.

From my life: Pay bills online, sign up for their paperless option, reduce the
number of different bills you are getting overall. (Extremist tip: Living
without a car outright eliminates a lot of paperwork in terms of insurance,
car payments, tag and title...etc. Those don't replaced with a license to
walk, registration to walk, etc. It's been a pleasant "bonus!")

