I have a client that wants some document scanning done, they have thousands of files (paper files) which they want to scan into a database that will have a nice interface (probably mysql with a php front on their intranet) probably as pdf's or even better searchable pdfs.

What's the best software for the scanning side of this? It'll be using a comercial scanner (yet to be picked, any recommendations appreciated) so will be going at quite a rate hopefully and will be reading double sided occasionally. It'll need to deal with jams quite easily i.e. be able to continue after a jam from where it left of.

The software has to be open source as we want to fully customise it so that all the client has to do is put in a file number and hit go and it will scan the file into the appropriate section of the database. We'll no doubt end up making quite a few other tweaks.

What are folks suggestions? Where do we start?

I'm not sure about the scanning software itself, but for document storage and retrieval, you might want to look at Knowledge Tree. It has the kind of searching ability you need, and the document organization is very flexible. Have a look at the license though, as it is not a GPL program and the free (as in no cost) version doesn't have all the capabilities of the paid version.

I've been researching Document scanning solutions as well. % companies so far have recommended the Fujitsu fi-4340C Sheet-fed Scanner. This scanner does 40 Pages a minute, can scan double sided documents has a SCSI and USB interface (SCSI is better with a decent card). The consumables for the scanner are inexpensive compared to some other scanners, so replacement bulbs, belts, and rollers can be purchased in a kit form for very little cash. teh initial outlay for the scanner is $4,000.00 but keep in mind the high volumes this is designed for.

Utilizing the proper software the scanner can read bar-codes which can then be used to automatically populate the meta-data for the database that is used to index the documents.


On the other side I had a company quote me around $12,000.00 to scan all 10 of my filing cabinets, index them, etc.. with a completion time of 2 weeks.. that's pretty inexpensive when you consider how many documents that is..

I have settled on a solution from a small local company. their solution is custom software which I will own, and it uses a straight SQL backend, and was more reasonably priced than the big players (onbase, etc..)

For ideas about OCR and scanning in general, check out the Project Gutenburg Distributed Proofreaders Forums. Scroll down to the "Helpful Software" boards.