Some PaperPort Tips

By | February 25, 2005

Further to my column in this week’s WSJ.com/AWSJ on PaperPort Pro and PaperMaster Pro, here are some tips on getting the most out of the former from Bob Anderson (ScanSoft Regional Director Asia Pacific and Japan):

Tip 1 – Using PaperPort PageViewer as a separate application and displaying PaperPort across two monitors. By default when you double click on a file it opens PageViewer as an integrated window over the PaperPort Desktop. You can change this behaviour under PaperPort Options: Desktop: Page View. Select “Display items in: PageViewer Application”. Now the PaperPort PageViewer “floats” over the PaperPort Desktop and can be moved independently. Unfortunately a single monitor does offer enough space to make this productive. To really get the benefit of the feature I have an external monitor connected to my laptop. You can also put an additional video card in a desktop computer. The Display control panel in Microsoft Windows will allow you to extend you Windows desktop across two monitors. I keep PaperPort opened on my right monitor at all times and when I double click on a file they appear in the PageViewer on my left monitor. Once you start working this way you will never go back to a single monitor again.

I can now instantly “zoom” onto a document without covering the PaperPort Desktop and with the new Page Thumbnails I can click and drag pages from the PaperPort PageViewer onto the PaperPort Desktop and vice-versa. This is essential when working with documents that are all text, like a contract, where one page thumbnail looks like the next because there are no distinguishing graphics or pictures.

Tip 2 – Using Page Names to quickly identify the content of individual pages.

On multi-page PDF documents I can quickly identify a particular page by sight, (such as the signature page of a contract or the beginning of a topic), by using Page Names. Click on a document and select Page Thumbnails. Click on the Page Thumbnail you wish to name. Click on the Item Properties button on the command bar. The Item Properties will appear in the Function Pane to the left. There will be a Page (x) of (x) field where you can type a page name. Enter a relevant page name and click the Save button.

If you need to see the full page to properly identify what the page name should be you can also add page names using the PaperPort PageViewer. Double click to open the document in the PaperPort PageViewer. Click on the page you wish to name. Select File: Item Properties under the file menu. The item properties will appear as a floating dialog. Enter the page name in the Page (x) of (x) field and click the Save button.

Tip 3 – Quickly finding an important page within a document. (Searching for the exact location of an annotation within a PDF document)

If I need to find a particular page at a later date I will mark it with a standard annotation so I can search for it later. I use annotations that make sense to me such as “please review”, “please call” and “important”.

I use the “Note” tool in the PaperPort PageViewer to mark the pages with these annotations. I then add the file to the All-in-One search index. When I need to go to that page again I do a search using the All-in-One search to locate the file by using “Name, author, keyword…” search with only “Annotations” checked and “Use All-in-One index” unchecked. Even though I initially added the entire file to the All-in-One index I only want PaperPort to find my note annotations and not all my other files containing the same words as my notes. This will limit my searches to quickly find the specific files I am trying to locate.

Once the file is located, if the annotation is buried on a page deep within a long document, I double-click it to open it in the PaperPort PageViewer. I then select Tools: Find in the PageViewer menu and search the document for annotations only. This immediately jumps me to the page that I had been trying to locate.

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