Import vs. Index for Scanned Documents

Hello,
I’m trying to develop a workflow and a storage plan for scanning thousands of pages of “household documents”.

I have DevonThink Pro Office version 2.7.6 on an iMac running OS X 10.9.3, and I’m using a Fuji ScanSnap iX500, and running the ScanSnap Manager version 6.2 L11.

I think I prefer to have the documents live outside the DTPO database, on an external hard drive, and simply Index them in DTPO. (But being new to this, I’m open to arguments to the contrary.)

When I scan & OCR a document, the PDF file is automatically imported into the database. So I have two questions:

  1. Does DTPO have a way to push the document back out to the file system?
  2. Or is there a way to scan and OCR and index, rather than import, the document?

Thanks again for any insight you can provide!

Jim

“Index” vs. “Import” is like asking “is red velvet cake better than coconut cake”. Unless you’re from Charleston, the answer is “it depends”.

Maybe this thread (and, dozens of others in a similar vein) will help:

The “OCR and Import” folder action could be adapted to make an “OCR and Index” folder action – but this becomes messy very quickly if you have a hierarchy of folders in the file system that you want to use for storing those OCRd documents.

Yes – I won’t repeat what’s already written in the forum, the manual, and tutorials – but look into those source for “move externally”

But, I will repeat my standard advice for this topic: experiment for yourself. Try your new workflow with an indexed database, and then with an imported database, and see which one works. All the advice in the forum on this topic is 99% opinion, including my own. :unamused: The reason is that there is no “right answer”.