I’m using a ScanSnap 1500M to scan bills and receipts into DTP.
The bills are sometimes one page, sometimes multiple pages. I’d like to tell ScanSnap how to create a PDF by placing a blank page between bills.
Is there any way to tell ScanSnap to do this? If not ScanSnap, then how about DTP? Or, is there a script that can be fired once the OCR is complete that will break up the PDF into multiple PDFs based on blank pages?
ScanSnap Manager has a setting that will create a new PDF every n pages. So, if you place into the feeder paper copy of multiple documents all with the same number of pages, and set ‘n’ in ScanSnap Manager, the PDFs will be properly paginated.
There are two rubs. It takes time and effort to sort the copy into stacks that all have ‘n’ pages. And if you make a mistake and include one that has more or less pages, it and all the subsequent PDFs will be messed up. Needless to say, I don’t bother with the ‘n’ pages setting.
After scanning for years, I’ve decided its faster to simply feed documents into the scanner one at a time. Why? fairly often invoices are two-sided copy, so I use the duplex setting (there’s a setting to ignore blank pages). And fairly often the paper copy is of different sizes, from narrow receipts to 8.5-inclh width - and scanning of mixed paper sizes (especially mixed widths) is asking for trouble. ScanSnap Manager has a setting that allows one to append additional pages in a PDF when the ‘Add’ button is clicked, on the computer screen, added copy is placed in the sheet feeder (perhaps with a width adjustment) and the Scan button is then clicked.
The ScanSnap is FAST! Drop a document into the feeder and it’s done in seconds. I uncheck the box in Preferences > OCR to add metadata after OCR, as that stops everything while waiting for me to type in title, subject, etc. and I hate that. I let ScanSnap name each PDF by date and time. I rename them in the database later. Tip: After OCR, the searchable PDFs usually contain a selectable text string that would be a good Name. Select it and press Control-Command-I and the PDF has been renamed!