Comments on: Is a Paperless Office a Pipedream or Really Possible?

By: 5 Tips for Taming Clutter, Online and Off

5 Tips for Taming Clutter, Online and Off — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:01:06 +0000

[...] admit, I haven’t gone completely paperless (is it even possible?), and while my clutter in no way compares to what I used to accumulate in previous (non-web) jobs, [...]

By: Interessante Zeiten » Das papierlose Büro - jetzt?

Interessante Zeiten » Das papierlose Büro - jetzt? — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:36:13 +0000

[...] Sherman: Is a Paperless Office a Pipedream or Really Possible? [via [...]

By: Nidhi Mathson

Nidhi Mathson — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:13:47 +0000

Nice article, hard copies are almost impossible to avoid in a small business but consider these tips from Earthtone to reduce printing:
1. Print only what you need – Sounds obvious right?
2. Measure twice, cut once – reduce the need for wasteful re-printing by detecting errors before the print job is executed.
3. Get your printing done on the go – Let your fingers do the walking, and use the internet to find the print shop that is closest to where your documents need to be.
4. Store and share your documents online – you can reach out to your road warriors to review a PowerPoint, or collaborate with your home office on a proposal without having to print and ship hard copies of the drafts.

By: Der Link am Morgen: Tipps fürs papierlose Büro » imgriff.com

Der Link am Morgen: Tipps fürs papierlose Büro » imgriff.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:26:38 +0000

[...] Is a Paperless Office a Pipedream or Really Possible? [...]

By: Brooks

Brooks — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:59:54 +0000

Another vote for the ScanSnap. I use the S300M which is the smaller, portable version. Almost every piece of mail that I need to keep goes into it and then the shredder.

I also did a massive scan-and-shred-athon on my filing cabinet. I wished I had the S510M for that.

I personally scan it to PDF, then Acrobat OCRs it, then I back it up both to an external HD and to an online backup service. If you go paperless, backups are key.

I alternate between using Spotlight to find files (since the PDFs are searchable) and I am currently playing around with Yep. Great program.

By: Tom Daly

Tom Daly — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:00:20 +0000

Let’s say you’ve scanned all your magazine articles into individual files. What you need to do then is maintain a database about those files.

Enter OpenOffice Writer.

On the Menu Bar click Tools/Bibliography Database. OpenOffice comes with an example database, we’ll just add a few records to it to illustrate some possibilities.

Click on the yellow star to add a record. Fill in the Short Name, Title, and User-Defined-1 fields putting the full path/name of one of your scanned files in User-Defined-1. Leave the Type field as “Article”.

Do this for a few more of your scanned files.

You now have a small database of your articles. Let’s put that database to use.

Back in the main Writer window, navigate to Insert/Indexes and Tables. On the Index/Table tab select Bibliography from the Type dropdown. On the Entries tab leave the Type as Article, just to the right of that select the User-Defined-1 field from the dropdown, change the Character Style to Default, and press OK. This defines the format of this document’s Bibliography.

Now let’s add some entries from the database into this document’s Bibliography.

On the Menu Bar navigate to Insert/Indexes and Tables/Bibliography Entry. Using the Short Name field, select one of the records you added to the database. Click Insert. Select a few more of your database entries and then click Close.

Now the Bibliography Entry fields are in your document and they point to entries in the database, but they need to have the current data brought in. To do this navigate to Tools/Update/Update All. You should now see info from your database in the document.

This hardly scratches the surface of what you can do with the Bibliography Database and this is just a “down and dirty” illustration. But it should give you some ideas and help get you going.

The more I learn about OpenOffice the more I like it. It’s powerfull, flexible, and an open xml based spec. And oh yeah, it costs nothing.

Cheers!

By: Lasse Rintakumpu

Lasse Rintakumpu — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:29:28 +0000

The paperless office is not a hallucination from the bygone decades—as long as is it's practical and economical, not an end-in-itself. Here's an excellent article by The Economist: The paperless office: On its way, at last . Don't print it.

By: Aliza Sherman

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:01:06 +0000

I was thinking of trying Shoeboxed free version – where you scan yourself – and get my assistant to scan for me. Pros? Cons?

By: Suzie

Suzie — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:56:09 +0000

I’ve been using Shoeboxed.com for about six months now and I really like it. Just put my receipts in an envelope, and they automatically go online and are automatically sortable and categorized for me. Receipts are one of those things that you always get… there’s no avoiding them. At least with Shoeboxed you can get them digitized without doing any of the scanning yourself.

By: John Mayson

John Mayson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:51:27 +0000

At home I have a printer connected to my iBook, but it’s about 4 or 5 years old and I’ve never replaced the ink cartridges and I’m assuming they’re drier than the Sahara by now.

I only print to PDF. If I need to take something with me I load the PDF file onto my Nokia N810. I’ve been able to rent cars just by reading off my confirmation number, or simply giving them my name. Other stuff I simply never have to produce it. Sure, it’s a good idea to print (to PDF) a confirmation you bought those N*Sync Reunion Tour tickets, but odds are you’ll never have to prove it to anyone because your tickets will in fact arrive. Why waste the paper, ink, and filing cabinet space?

If I find myself with a critical PDF file or other information I’ll email it to my GMail account where I know it’s safe and sound.

By: Gregg Marshall

Gregg Marshall — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:41:39 +0000

I also use a Fujitsu ScanSnap that sits on my desk.

I’ve got about 39,000 pages of scanned images, most with quick and dirty OCR by Abbyy to let me find which filename to look in.

I’d say about 95% of my paper is now inside the network.

By: Mark Bean

Mark Bean — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:18:44 +0000

I run an Enterprise Content Management consulting firm based in Fair Oaks, California.
The only way to achieve the paperless office is to stop paper from happening in the first place.

- Don’t own a printer
- Don’t own a fax machine
- Increase screen real estate
- Sign up for electronic bills
- Purchase everything with American Express
- Keep electronic copies of everything in a searchable archive

Prevention is the art of causing something not to happen. Good luck.

By: Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann

Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:16:25 +0000

I am, of course, using DEVONthink Pro Office and the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500M. DEVONthink comes with a dedicated plugin for the ScanSnap so configuration is a no-brainer and the integrated OCR makes all scans searchable. I build archive databases for each year that I save to the JungleDisk.

Disclaimer: I am the president of DEVONtechnologies, makers of DEVONthink Pro Office.