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Alternative to Mariner Software's Paperless Product?

J

johnjay1776

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 25, 2008
81
0
I've used Mariner Software's Paperless 1.3.0 product for around 1.5 years. Recently, they released version 2.0.4 as an upgrade before OS X Lion came out. I almost clicked, "upgrade" when I saw that they had a new version come out because I really liked their 1.3.0 release. However, I began to think to myself, "Wait a minute. You use this software daily. What if you download version 2.0.X and are unhappy with it?" So, I held off. I work in IT all day long and the last thing I want to do is to screw around fixing computers when I get off work (it's why I changed to the OS X platform to being with :) ).

I upgraded my computer to OS X Lion and wasn't too surprised to see that the 1.3.0 version of Paperless had issues with it. So, I decided to try the trial version of 2.0.4 Paperless. I soon discovered that it did in fact have multiple unresolved issues. I also read on their web site that Paperless 1.3.0 will not be compatible with Lion. So, this week, Mariner Software released Paperless 2.1. It appeared that it would fix the problems I had been having and it did fix the crashes. It didn't fix all of the issues and one issue in particular keeps the product from being practically functional.

So, how about it? Can anyone direct me to an easy to use substitute for Paperless?
 
Well, honestly, I use it for everything. When new bills come in whether they are e-bills or traditional paper statements, I scan them in and shred them.

I scan my receipts, warranties, pretty much everything I can get away with scanning so that I don't have to rely on shifting/shoveling paper.

I'll take a look at the product you mention for technical documents but I'm looking for a replacement that pretty much does everything I mentioned above.

Anyone else have additional suggestions?
 
johnjay1776 said:
Well, honestly, I use it for everything. When new bills come in whether they are e-bills or traditional paper statements, I scan them in and shred them.

I scan my receipts, warranties, pretty much everything I can get away with scanning so that I don't have to rely on shifting/shoveling paper.

I'll take a look at the product you mention for technical documents but I'm looking for a replacement that pretty much does everything I mentioned above.

Anyone else have additional suggestions?
Click to expand...

JohnJay1776 -
Did you ever find an alternative? I made the leap and bought Paperless and Mariner's recommended scanner from Fujitsu. I'm having constant issues and Mariner's tech support stinks. Wishing I had read the forums and not relied on probably paid reviews of the software. It's fundamentally flawed.
Zama36
 
Sadly I never did. I was however able to get Paperless 2.X to work like I needed it to and sadly I had to "go it on my own". Let me know what problems you are running into and I'll see if I can assist you.

I agree that their tech support is less than stellar but they're the only game I've found in town. Perhaps that has something to do with it? ;)
 
johnjay1776 said:
Sadly I never did. I was however able to get Paperless 2.X to work like I needed it to and sadly I had to "go it on my own". Let me know what problems you are running into and I'll see if I can assist you.

I agree that their tech support is less than stellar but they're the only game I've found in town. Perhaps that has something to do with it? ;)
Click to expand...

Johnjay -

Thanks for responding.

Basically, I was scanning in receipts and Paperless at times would accept the changes that I made to the type of document, amount, tax, extra but would not remove the item from the inbox after I clicked done. When going to the report view these items would be tagged with their original scanned in file name and sometime some of the dollar amounts.

Mariner basically had me answer a million questions, say that they couldn''t repro it, told me to reinstall and that was the end of it.

What did you mean about "go on your own?"
 
zama36 said:
Johnjay -

Thanks for responding.

Basically, I was scanning in receipts and Paperless at times would accept the changes that I made to the type of document, amount, tax, extra but would not remove the item from the inbox after I clicked done. When going to the report view these items would be tagged with their original scanned in file name and sometime some of the dollar amounts.

Mariner basically had me answer a million questions, say that they couldn''t repro it, told me to reinstall and that was the end of it.

What did you mean about "go on your own?"
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have the same thing happen from time to time where items will stay in the inbox. It doesn't appear to be detrimental to the tasks that I use it for so I largely ignore it when it happens. The next time I start the software it fixes itself. Their technical support is pretty sorry.

By "go it on my own" I mean that I had to fix a lot of the initial technical issues that I ran into myself by stumbling upon the solution. Good luck with the product.
 
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Thanks JohnJay -

My sister is running into the same type of situation but it's much worse for her which makes me nervous about Paperless. I haven't talked to her lately to see how Mariner responded. Last I heard it was useless.

So what type of issues did you work through?
 
I'm going to have to check into this product. I've always just used my scansnap to put things into PDF files. I then put all those into a directory and use Yep to tag them.
 
zama36 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Thanks JohnJay -

My sister is running into the same type of situation but it's much worse for her which makes me nervous about Paperless. I haven't talked to her lately to see how Mariner responded. Last I heard it was useless.

So what type of issues did you work through?
Click to expand...

Whenever I would scan in a new document, it corrupted my existing libraries. I had to download the latest update but that wasn't all. I had to go into ScanSnap Manager and make sure that when I scanned something in, it went to the NEW version of Paperless instead of the old version (which I still have on the machine).

That was largely it. The product itself is stable for me right now so I'm hoping that I don't have any other issues with it. It was largely frustrating initially because their technical support was atrocious. I had to make time to fiddle around with it until I was able to fix it myself. I hope you guys get your issues ironed out.
 
Software options?

I have the same problem.
I have been scanning, naming and organizing for years but would like some software assist with tagging scanned docs for less than the $150 DevonThink pricetag because my file directories are getting larger.
I am pretty organized and selecting to store my auto insurance (as an example) in a specific vehicle folder or in my insurance folder or in a dated folder or opting to maintain a copy in each folder is limiting. Would be nicer to have on doc file it tagged with the vehicle, year issued & company name (we have 4 policies by 2 carries on our homes and autos), etc.
Would also help me to quickly find & delete files no longer needed. Question seems to be whether to use a database import system that monitors path changes or to use one requiring each doc file be tagged or smart labled.
So far I have discovered Vue Scan, Elyse and DevonThink. I don't need overkill though and have not found many forum discussions or comments from actual users.
 
Last edited:
sandimacd said:
I have the same problem.
I have been scanning, naming and organizing for years but would like some software assist with tagging scanned docs for less than the $150 DevonThink pricetag because my file directories are getting larger.
I am pretty organized and selecting to store my auto insurance (as an example) in a specific vehicle folder or insurance folder or by date or to maintain a copy in each is limiting. Would be nicer to have it tagged with the vehicle, year issued, company name (we have 4 policies on homes and autos), etc.*Would also help me to quickly delete files mo longer needed.
So far I have discovered Vue Scan, Elyse and DevonThink. I don't need overkill though and not many forum comments from actual users.
Click to expand...
I have been using iDocument to replace Paperless. I have used Paperless for several years but it has got to where it is more trouble than it is worth. iDocument is working out pretty good, I use preview to scan the document then import to iDocument and tag.
 
Similar experience: Lousy support, lousy product

I am dumbfounded not only by how bad Paperless 2x has been for me, but how unresponsive and apathetic Mariner seems to be about the problems. As with other posters here, I initially complied with their requests that I attempt to "reproduce" the issue -- as if I had to demonstrate to them that the product is deficient when their own forum is crawling with upset users. In any case, I have threads of back and forth with support, sending Terminal logs, screenshots -- just a waste of time. Another response I have seen on the boards and received personally is that they "know there's an issue." Okay. That's it? That's what you got? When I check in months later, there has been no resolution to the issue, or even an effort to update users on progress toward resolving the issue. On their forum, I've noticed some users indicate they would revert to a legacy version of the product. I don't know if that's any better. In any case, my own experience has been frequent crashes (in fact, it consistently crashes when I try to import a folder), total lack of OCR within the app (not talking about OCR provided by the scanner software) and lack of a progress bar indicating what the eff is going on in middle of a job (usually what's going on is that the software is doing nothing. Or crashing.) I'm going to try Devon -- never heard of it but I do place a high value on document management and organization.
 
I started recently using Paperless, as well. It has worked pretty well, but I was disappointed when I tried syncing the Paperless folder to SugarSync (a DropBox like service that lets you name which folders you want to sync, as opposed to having to use a specific folder).

Anyway, the Paperless folder structure makes it very difficult to locate any documents, since they all reside within nested folders based on the date the item was scanned. So unless you know that date, you can't easily find the file.
 
I like Yep because it doesn't use it's own proprietary "library" file, it simply uses your own preferred folder system. I like this for several reasons, mainly future proofing (no worries if the application ever goes away in the future -- all my documents are just PDF's in folders).

Also, the devs have already confirmed that Yep is fully compatible with Mountain Lion, so there's that too.

It's not perfect but it's a great solution for $26.
 
Another option

Used Yep, loved it. Tech support sucks and after I lost a lot of tags and the program refused to back them up and they refused to respond to my problem by email or on the forum I started searching, I am unwilling to be at risk with the large number of documents. They also seem to lack interest in updating/upgrading the program as it is unchanged for years, on the other hand it has a great workflow. If you don't care about losing your tags it is a great program, they just seem more interested in kicking new programs out the door than maintaining the existing.

I finally settled on EagleFiler. The developer is very responsive and seems to take the security of your tags very seriously, just read through the forums and you will get a sense. I like it much better than the trials I had of Paperless, Devonthink, Idocument and others.
 
mhgator05 said:
Used Yep, loved it. Tech support sucks and after I lost a lot of tags and the program refused to back them up and they refused to respond to my problem by email or on the forum I started searching, I am unwilling to be at risk with the large number of documents. They also seem to lack interest in updating/upgrading the program as it is unchanged for years, on the other hand it has a great workflow. If you don't care about losing your tags it is a great program, they just seem more interested in kicking new programs out the door than maintaining the existing.

I finally settled on EagleFiler. The developer is very responsive and seems to take the security of your tags very seriously, just read through the forums and you will get a sense. I like it much better than the trials I had of Paperless, Devonthink, Idocument and others.
Click to expand...

Doesn't Yep use the OpenMeta system that imprints your tags within the files themselves, so they can be used with any app? I thought that was the case...
 
mhgator05 said:
Used Yep, loved it. *snip*

I finally settled on EagleFiler. The developer is very responsive and seems to take the security of your tags very seriously, just read through the forums and you will get a sense. I like it much better than the trials I had of Paperless, Devonthink, Idocument and others.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this info, I am going to check this out. I currently have Yep, but as you had mentioned, it doesn't seem to receive much love. Plus, EagleFiler appears to be made by the same people that make SpamSieve, so I'm hoping it impresses me as much as SpamSieve does.
 
Another Paperless user looking to move away from it. Paperless hasn't been perfect but it's worked reasonably well for me. However I'm still using version 1.3 and I've always known that sooner or later I'm going to have to either upgrade or go with something else. I'm using Mountain Lion now and it's started to become really unstable so the time has arrived for me to make a decision.

Whatever I use it would only be for personal reasons – documents and receipts mainly. Some of the documents and receipts are scanned in from my multifunction Canon PIXMA scanner. I don't have a very large database, and it's not something I use every day, but I found going the "paperless office" route is just a much better way to do things.

My concerns with upgrading to Paperless 2.x are the following:

1. Poor reviews in the Mac App Store
2. Poor support
3. No Mountain Lion support as of yet (as far as I know)
4. Doesn't support OpenMeta

Since I already use Evernote for other things I'm considering that, however I know that also doesn't support OpenMeta. However, it seems much more likely that will be around for a much longer time than something like Paperless would. I would use off-line folders for anything that I had stored in Paperless. You also can't directly scan into Evernote which would be a bit of an inconvenience but not a showstopper. However I don't know how I would handle scanned multiple page documents with Evernote?

Or I can go an entirely different route and if that were to happen I'm mainly looking at something like EagleFlier or Yep. Both support OpenMeta which seems to be the best future-proofed system around. Yep, in particular, really looks impressive to me but then there's all those comments about poor support and so forth. At the same time some people seem to absolutely love it. It also was recently updated according to the Mac App Store.

Of the three Evernote is the cheapest (free and I already use it). EagleFlier is the most expensive ($40). It seems like no matter what I choose all I'll have to do is simply drag my files out of Paperless (PDFs) onto my desktop then go from there.

So is Evernote good enough for something like this or will I be better off, and more future-proofed, with one of the other two options? Or would it going with Yep be that much of a risk? (They claim on their forums that it's their flagship product)

Thanks.

-PN
 
I've been trying the Evernote free. Never thought of using it to store files. Right now I either scan or print to a PDF format and save a copy on my NAS and archive routinely.
I just looked at Evernote site and there is a limit. I probably wouldn't hit it for years but makes me wonder what I'd do if they lowered it.
I am getting tired of online sync products, have tried them all over the years.
Seems like as soon as I get all uploaded, synced and comfortable w/ the product, they go out of business, change a feature that is important to me, don't offer a feature that I need or they merge or send me to another company.
I am looking into uploading to Amazon's server as an online backup but I need to reasearch more on what I get for the cost and how much trouble it is. Currently, I just manage my own files, mirror them and then and save an archived copy locally because I like the control. All our PCs, Macs and devices save to the same NAS so no duplicate files to weed through. I use GoodSync Pro to back up and mirror everything.

----------

Re-read. Thinking you want Evernote for the tag structure? Or another way to tag vs sort into folders? I use PDF PEN for my scans and file edits. I think they integrate w/ Evernote and iCloud but I've never used that feature. I still prefer one file in a folder hierarchy that I have used for years. Perhaps one day I may go through and add tags but that seems like a lot of work right now. I always include the date (20120805) as part of the file name. So if I ever did need to search for some archaic receipt I can more easily identify it.
 
sandimacd said:
I've been trying the Evernote free. Never thought of using it to store files. Right now I either scan or print to a PDF format and save a copy on my NAS and archive routinely.
I just looked at Evernote site and there is a limit. I probably wouldn't hit it for years but makes me wonder what I'd do if they lowered it.
I am getting tired of online sync products, have tried them all over the years.
Seems like as soon as I get all uploaded, synced and comfortable w/ the product, they go out of business, change a feature that is important to me, don't offer a feature that I need or they merge or send me to another company.
I am looking into uploading to Amazon's server as an online backup but I need to reasearch more on what I get for the cost and how much trouble it is. Currently, I just manage my own files, mirror them and then and save an archived copy locally because I like the control. All our PCs, Macs and devices save to the same NAS so no duplicate files to weed through. I use GoodSync Pro to back up and mirror everything.

----------

Re-read. Thinking you want Evernote for the tag structure? Or another way to tag vs sort into folders? I use PDF PEN for my scans and file edits. I think they integrate w/ Evernote and iCloud but I've never used that feature. I still prefer one file in a folder hierarchy that I have used for years. Perhaps one day I may go through and add tags but that seems like a lot of work right now. I always include the date (20120805) as part of the file name. So if I ever did need to search for some archaic receipt I can more easily identify it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. Right now I'm leaning towards using Evernote. It doesn't have some of the same features that Paperless has but I'm already accustomed to using it and have a pretty good idea of how I could use tags to organize my documents and receipts. For now I'm just going to use Image Capture for scanning documents into Evernote. In the future I might try something else. once again I don't do a lot of scanning and don't have a huge collection of documents and receipts (pepper or digital) so a bare-bones solution like this should be fine for me for now. The only thing I'm not really crazy about with this set up is the prospect of having to get everything out of Evernote should I choose something different in the future. The OpenMeta route would have removed those concerns.

Will see what happens.

-PN
 
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