Is PaperMaster Finally Dead?

By | August 12, 2008

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A reader tells me that PaperMaster, the once great scanning and file saving software, is no longer available. Tech support, the reader says, says only that the product was pulled today and no other info is available. 

Try to order one online and the message ‘531031 PaperMaster Pro International – not available’.

A sad end to what was once—and for many still is—the best program for scanning documents into folders where you can easily find them again. Paperport just isn’t quite the same, somehow.

That said, the company that bought PaperMaster, j2, have had it coming to them for a while. I found them unhelpful in my efforts to review earlier versions of the software, and this blog has been something of a gathering point for disgruntled users.

I don’t think they really understood the software, or the fanbase, that they had. The product has not been mentioned on their corporate website for some time (except, interestingly, on their legal page.)

Sad, really, given that there are lots of users still out there. If you’re in that boat, and you’re still looking for a replacement, you might want to try Evernote. It’s not quite ready to do what PaperMaster did, but they’re promising PDF thumbnails (Macs already have it, natively) so you might find it works for you.

32 thoughts on “Is PaperMaster Finally Dead?

  1. David Sutton

    OK – Ive been struggling keeping papermaster working as technology advanced and time after time the program wouldn’t work with each new version of Windows. Now after paying for the upgrade to Papermaster 7 six months ago and converting my cabinets Im faced with upgrading to VISTA. and once again PM not working. Years of documents and Im unsure what to do with them. Im not wanting any new whistles and bells – just to have Papermaster work with Vista. Has anyone found a work around such as running in compatibility mode or tweaking something ??? J2 certainly doesn’t care. Call me frustrated.

    Reply
    1. Hamwwd

      Hi David, a old user of Papermaster Pro. Have a large database (Cabinets) of work. Lost my purchased program. Is there any possibility I can get it from you? It wii be a great help.

      Reply
  2. Jeremy Wagstaff

    David, I would recommend finding an XP machine to convert your documents to PDF and then using them in another program — Paperport, or somesuch. PaperMaster is dead and I think continuing to use the program will always be a source of frustration.

    Reply
  3. Kazuyori

    I have been using the PaperMaster for 15 years, and I found the product had terminated, just today. I am planning to convert all my cabinets to PDF and will utilize them with PDF cabinet function of Adbe Acrobat standard.
    I am very sad for the product termination, but PDF format will be better than multipage tiff for future survivability of the data.
    If anyone knows better solution for the document management, I want to listen. Also, it is better for me if they can handle 2-byte character (Japanese)if possible.

    Reply
  4. alex h

    Does anyone know of a similar software package, which will open/import Papermaster databases and files?

    Reply
  5. alex h

    25/11/2008 Email from Papermaster support.

    Thank you for contacting Papermaster Customer Support. Unfortunately we no longer sell or provide PaperMaster to any existing customer or new customer, we only provide technical support .

    Sincerely,

    + Matt M.
    PaperMaster Customer Support
    1-323-817-3214

    Reply
  6. mitchell

    Does anyone have or know of a conversion program to convert 10 gigs of PM docs. It will take years to convert doc by doc to pdf. Will any company buy PM like Paperport?

    Reply
  7. GERARD

    I am still using the now dead FILINGCENTRAL by E-fax which was free and performs much better than papermaster.
    It scans, imports, retrieves, indexes etc and its graphic interface is oustanding.

    Reply
  8. Tracey

    We have been using Papermaster for some years now and find it a very useful tool. Have got a small problem with it at the moment and emailed j2 expecting a reply but never got anything. Have just discovered this blog and am dismayed to read that Papermaster is dead! Has anybody come across any solutions to replace it??

    Reply
  9. WILLIAM WALLACE

    I am in the same situation was all of you. I am still running PaperMaster98 under XP. Can anyone tell me how to move these files to someother file management system. Someone wrote use XP to convert them to PDFs. Please give me a clue how to do that if you know.

    Thank you

    William H Wallace

    bill@williamhwallace.com

    Reply
  10. WILLIAM WALLACE

    I am still running with PaperNaster98 on an XP machine. Anyone know what software etc and what upgrade steps I need to do to keep this data alive, besides staying with an XP machine?

    Any help would be appreciated. Please e-mail me direct to tell me you responded or snd a copy direct as well. Thank you

    Bill Wallace
    bill@williamhwallace.com

    Reply
  11. philip Ganci

    Another Papermaster fan here. 15 years worth of docs. Easy interface. Loved it! If we convert to a program that uses pdf’s, what would be the best replacement?

    Reply
  12. Tom

    Paper Master 98 will work on any 32 bit OS.
    I currently am using it on Windows 7 Pro
    32 bit. It will not work on 64 bit OS’s.

    Reply
  13. David Elazar

    Has anyone transfered their PaperMaster documents over to FileCenter (Basic or Pro)?

    Please let me know directly in addition to this blog.

    Thanks,

    mtevans@zahav.net.il

    Reply
  14. David Elazar

    I loaded my Papermater onto my new computer (Windows 7 64-bit). I can read and search the documents however I cannot scan or add documents as it does not recognize PM as a printer nor does it recognize the scanner (as on Windows XP). As a temporary solution, I add documents using my Windows XP computer and copy the files into my Windows 7 computer.

    Reply
  15. Frank L Carlone

    I originally loaded PM Pro on my old system with XP OS, and later downloaded FileCenter Free trial to batch transfer the efx files to pdf. There is an advantage to this in that FileCenter saves the files so that they can be accsessed liked any other file. But, I replaced my old computer with an HP Touchsmart, 64 bit, with Windows 7 OS. I loaded Papermaster and it works as good as it did on the old computer, and still using it today. File center is a good alternative in my view, but I consider them a little greedy, charging $200 for the product that includes the ability to batch convert and file from efx to pdf. For me, PaperMaster is working like a charm and I am enjoying the software. For those having trouble, I would recommend the Lucion product without hesitation. flc

    Reply
    1. jeremy Post author

      Frank, thanks for this. That’s really interesting, that you’ve managed to make Papermaster work. I still miss that product. I’d agree on FileCenter; it’s pricey for what it is, and doesn’t really do what Papermaster managed.

      Reply
      1. Brian Howard

        Hi Jeremy, I’ve used Filecenter for a few years now with great success. I used Papermaster for many years before that. I can’t find a single thing that FileCentre doesn’t do that Papermaster did. Indeed, Filecentre does many things of which Papermaster was incapable. What things are you thinking about? Cheers, Brian.

        Reply
  16. J C Davis

    I still have and use PM 98 (a brilliant programme) but I did buy PaperMaster Pro 7 with 3 licenses and an official copy on CD, hoping to use it for some years. However when eventually there’s a computer problem, the programme has to be reactivated with a key or code that one got by phoning J2. Now I can’t get such a code, and the programme refuses to run. I have lost access to a great deal of information. I can’t figure out how this “reactivation” can be achieved without the company’s support, and feel very let down.

    Reply
  17. Tommy

    I need a copy of papermaster. It is 2.0 or 3.0. I have files created with it and and I can not open them. The file are a criminal case dating back a few years. Any help will be appreciated.

    Reply
  18. Don

    I have and still use Papermaster 98. One of the best programs of all time. I use it at work and home. Almost 6 gigs of data. I also looked into Papermaster Pro 7 but as soon as I saw that it needed Activation, that was a deal killer. No way was I going to risk years of data on that crap. I have several computers and hardware drivers and Windows XP disk safely stored so I will always be able to access my data. Papermaster 98 runs great on XP. I recently installed it on a Windows 7 machine and all appeared to work well until I created a new folder for some scanning, it would not create the folder. But to view and print old documents, it appeared to work fine. So a person could view old stuff on Windows 7 while starting a new document storage solution for the future. I use a Fujitsu fi-5120c scanner and love it. Email me directly at hmhconline@gmail.com.

    Reply
  19. David

    Tommy, I have the original paper master live cd if it helps. I can send a copy if it helps. Send me an email with your info.

    Is it true PM will work on a 32 bit 7 machine?

    Does anyone have experience with converting PM live data, to filecenter?

    Reply
    1. Brad

      I would appreciate having a working copy of your Paper Master Live for my 32 bit Wins 7

      Thank you

      Reply
  20. Steve

    OK, I’ll bite – This thread doesn’t seem to be dead yet. I have 18GB of PM Pro V7 data and I’m down to 1 machine that can access the data. I tried the Filecenter conversion utility but found that although id does convert the majority of the data, it really doesn’t come close to doing a complete job. The deal killer for a migration to Filecenter is that the conversion utility produces .TIF files which are pretty useless to me. It did do a fairly decent job of replicating the fileing/folder structure though.

    So what I would like to find is someone out there who went through the manual activation process over the phone with those guys. That activation key should be able to get me up and running (not to be confused with the POP code that you received when you purchased the software).

    I also have Papermaster 2002 & 2003 software archived here and I believe that I still might even have earlier versions stashed away somewhere if someone needs them.

    I also downloaded a supposedly cracked copy of Papermaster Pro V7 only to find that the RAR was password protected and the server where the PW was stored no longer exsisted. Ran a PW cracker on that with a quad core machine for 3 months before giving up…

    So any thoughts or help would be appreciated!!!

    Steve

    Reply
  21. Tan

    I use Papermaster 98 even today on win xp and win 7. It does not install the printer but otherwise works fine. It is still very fast and easy to use software for scanning using any scanner twain complaint.
    However it sometimes gives ordinal errors in some cases and displays mirror images in the viewer software for which I have no solution.
    Want to know if there is anything similar to to this software which works as fast and with ease on the current systems.

    Reply
  22. neil

    I owned PM way back when, also loved it. Scanned my bills, after only a few months, it worked PERFECT – it know what the bill was, and where to put it. I did try Lucio’s FileCenter, still have the test version installed, but everything I want it to do is ONLY in the $199 version, not the basic $99. So, that is WAY tooooo much money.Ah well…

    Reply
  23. Randy

    I have been running PM for years, and recently had to upgrade a laptop to Windows 7 64 bit. I can still run a version of PM that lets me view the files. I tried using Filecenter, but I believe the PM I am running on my old XP computer is not new enough to do this. Any suggestions?

    Reply

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