Document Management System for Mac

[jackrv]

Hello all,

I'm looking for a good DMS for the Mac. I'll want to scan/store receipts, contracts, and other forms of Documentation. I've found a few with good reviews, though mostly geared towards receipts. The one I've been looking at is called paperless, but wondered if anyone here had any experience with any other packages.

I would need to store a digital scan of the document, plus metadata. Organization into categories would be nice but necessary if the search is good enough. Also storing other document types would be a plus such as word, pages, etc...

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[PlaceofDis]

take a look into Yep, i use it and have found it to be great for keeping track of all my documents. much easier than finder imo.

 

[yongren]

Evernote can do what you're talking about. It has a good system for categorizing documents into notebooks and sub-notebooks, and you can also tag them into different categories and search by those tags. There's even text recognition for scanned images.

 

[CaptMurdock]

Growly Notes will do most of that as well, with the added bonus of being free. It recently added custom tags. That said, I don't think you can OCR.

 

[jackrv]

take a look into Yep, i use it and have found it to be great for keeping track of all my documents. much easier than finder imo.

I took a look at their website and the app store, and Yep3 seems almost exactly what I am looking for.

I have evernote, which I do use, but that is not the kind of organization I want for this purpose.

Growly notes looks nice also, I will do some research into these.

Thank you for your responses.

 

[steveoc]

DEVONthink Pro Office would work well. It has integrated OCR.

 

[Schismz]

DEVONthink Pro Office would work well. It has integrated OCR.

DTPO is an amazing app. It has kind of a kludgy, non-simplistic interface ('cuz it has so many possible options and features), but it stomps EverNote and other lightweight stuff for doing heavy-duty document management. It's really sweet.

 

[keepingeyesopen]

DTPO is an amazing app. It has kind of a kludgy, non-simplistic interface ('cuz it has so many possible options and features), but it stomps EverNote and other lightweight stuff for doing heavy-duty document management. It's really sweet.

I have downloaded and tried a trial version of DTPO, and it is indeed a very powerful tool.

Before investing too much time learning this and committing to the purchase price, a couple of questions:
1. Is it easy to retrieve files in the database while not in the program itself? What happens 10 years from now, in the event that my computer is obsolete and DTPO is no longer around?
2. How are the files stored, in what format?

I once used a document manager (PaperPort) in an old Windows PC. Initially the files were stored in a proprietary format (".max" files) that is not supported by any other program. I have several years' worth of data stored in that format and can retrieve it only by booting up an old Windows PC and manually retrieving the files. I don't want to repeat that mistake. I understand that PaperPort now stores files in pdf or other "native" formats, but this is too late for me.

3. Is it possible to retrieve "pieces" of files - a paragraph or two, a cut-and-paste clip or an image from another file or a web site, and place this into the DTPO database? I'm thinking specifically of doing a cut-and-paste from a web site without having to "print" an entire web page to a pdf file.

4. Is it possible to edit a pdf file from within the DTPO application?

Thanks.

 

[tbaer]

Old thread, maybe you will look at it..
Did you decide on a solution? I am in somewhat the same situation. Used ELOoffice on windows to archive years of documents and now switched to Mac.
Luckily there is an export function in ELO and I created a script that converted those ELO files back into regular files so that was step 1. Maybe that would work with your paperport files too?

So did you just go with finder or actually added YEP/iDocument/DOO etc. on top of it?

 

[flynz4]

Old thread, maybe you will look at it..
Did you decide on a solution? I am in somewhat the same situation. Used ELOoffice on windows to archive years of documents and now switched to Mac.
Luckily there is an export function in ELO and I created a script that converted those ELO files back into regular files so that was step 1. Maybe that would work with your paperport files too?

So did you just go with finder or actually added YEP/iDocument/DOO etc. on top of it?

To answer this old thread. DTPO stores the original files in their exact unmodified form... or if enabled.. as PDF+Text. There is zero risk of losing the data to an incompatible file format.

/Jim

 

[jojoba]

Another vote for Devonthink here. Amazing app.

 

[robgendreau]

Devonthink comes in a few flavors; they have a comparison on their website.

It is sort of a combo filesystem/database. You can either index documents and leave them where they are in your existing filesystem, or import them into Devonthink's database where they will be stored in Devonthink's own filesystem. Sorta like Mac Mail or iPhoto does, but Devonthink gives you much more control: you can export the imported ones out easily, or import the indexed ones.

For example, I index the eml email files in ~/Library/Mail/xyz@mymailprovider.com. That way I can access them outside the Mail system, and integrate them non-destructively with other documents in the same Devonthink database.

Devonthink is also getting more integrated with Mavericks tagging, which means that you can use one tag throughout the system. Very nice. And they've been around since almost the Devonian so I wouldn't worry about a decade from now; in any case, since you can index files you don't have to worry about a proprietary format. You can also access the databases from elsewhere, and they have an iOS app.

I'd also endorse Yep (and Leap). Their strength is more like a Finder replacement. And they have super strong tagging support, so you can leave files where they are and yet find them very easily and group them in a myriad of ways. Frankly I like Windows 7 File Explorer better than the Mac Finder since you can see the document without a separate action, and Yep is more like that. Path Finder is a plus in this regard as well, although it's a pure Finder alternative rather than a document management system.

 

[Markiemac]

Question about script

Hello tbaer

Do you still have this script for the ELO export conversion and would you be willing to make it awailable to other users?

Thanks,
Markie (have sent you a friend request to exchange address details)

Old thread, maybe you will look at it..
Did you decide on a solution? I am in somewhat the same situation. Used ELOoffice on windows to archive years of documents and now switched to Mac.
Luckily there is an export function in ELO and I created a script that converted those ELO files back into regular files so that was step 1. Maybe that would work with your paperport files too?

So did you just go with finder or actually added YEP/iDocument/DOO etc. on top of it?

 

[tbaer]

Hello tbaer

Do you still have this script for the ELO export conversion and would you be willing to make it awailable to other users?

I checked my files but sadly cannot find the script anymore.
There is an index file for each folder and I basically read that out and recreated a new folder structure. The ELO files had not file extension and that also had to be added back.