document storage
 

Hi,

My partner is a teacher (nursery/kindergarten level) and has lots of magazines and other types of paper media for activity projects and the like.

So can anyone suggest the best way to store them on disc? i.e. what kind of applications etc

We have access to both windows xp/office 2k, and mandrake or knoppix/debian hard disc, a scanner, a cdrw, and an additional hard disc that could be used for storage (40gig's).

I think that it may be just a case of scanning the documents and storing them as images (that could, if necessary, be "ocr'd" later)

but how could I accomplish this ???

regards

John

I think the scan and store option is a good idea. While you are doing that, you could also take a little more time and create your self an HTML front page for each cd, put a link to the magazine or magazine page and a short description of the article. You could then see fairly quickly when you use the cd whether the page needed is there. The cds could then be lent out to others safe in the knowledge that you will have given over the 'right' cd.

Just a thought.

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Ooops, just reread your post. I do know that some scanner programs have the ability to save the scans as pdf files. That way anyone can read them - Windows and non-Windows users.

Thanks for the reply XavierP,

What I don't understand is what I actually need to do to accomplish this.

Do I need "software A", to produce "document B", which in turn is stored in "location C"?

I mean, I've looked at MySQL and PostgreSQL's home pages, but I don't understand what these facilities actually do?

It wouldn't be a problem to just scan all the images/documents in, but how would I go about managing them, so they're searchable ? For instance do the doc's/images need "meta data" somehow, so they can be searched for, what with all being education related, I would have to be able to identify similar things quickly (and in a basic way, as Clare's not exactly what you could call "computer literate", she can manage Office 2k and windows, but anything linux is a mystery - I would have to do anything "image edit/ocr" related?

This is the kind of info that I need to find out, as I have virtually no understanding of how databases work, or what they can actually do (though it does seem to be a "good idea" to actually have some "proper" work for my pc - as opposed to it being a glorified typewriter :D)

regards

John

Hmmm, maybe you should scan them in as Word (or OpenOffice Writer!) files and I would suggest that you definitely create an index or a list of keywords.

A quick google told me that other ways of creating what you are after involves either databases and programming or professional programs that cost money.

Apparently both Oracle ons SQL will do the job - but I am not a programmer and have no idea how you'd go about it in either.

Cheapest and easiest way would be to scan as Word docs and then search each file for particular words. I also think a contents page and index for each cd would be useful.

One of the reason's that I was trying to steer clear of MS is the "aging" of their format. I appreciate that with each release, the MS document support gets better and better with Open office.

If I settle on using an office programme, then it will be Open office - I have actually found some stuff about running open office with MySQL (though it refered to Open office 1.0) I don't see why it shouldn't work OK with Open office 1.1 - the general plan being that until I get a recordable DVD, until then I suspect that I will probably have to re-install my spare hard disc and store the stuff on that.

I will probably keep looking round for something more specific though, as If I can keep the info in a format that can be read by any OS, then it could indeed go onto cdr. Your suggestion re- pdf's sounds excellent.

regards

John