Can I get Filemaker to run my scanner?

[mikekl]

Can I get Filemaker to run my scanner to fill the conatiner fields from within FMP 8? I am using it to keep electronic copies of shipping docs.

[Conartist]

I'm interested in this as well...

[BrentHedden]

I've been searching for this kind of functionality for a few years now. So far, I've only come up with two possibilities, but both are not an option for me -

One I found was for FM5, but it only worked with certain Canon scanners. Even then, the interface was weak, and didn't work correctly with FM 7&8.

The other one I found is made by a company named G-NEXT.

http://www.gnext.co.jp/english/products/p_rak1.html

This is an amazingly cool plug-in, but unfortunately the interface is only available in Japanese. So unless you can read this language, it's going to be difficult at best to use. They mentioned that an English version is comming out soon, but who knows when that'll be. If and when this actually happens, it'll be very nice.

If there are any other plugins for controlling scanners, I'm unaware of them. I'm sure the difficulty in programming this is trying to accomodate all or most scanner(s), since each one is different.

[Franco]

use insidescan plug-in from www.powersolutions.it.

also the troi grabber plug-in from www.troi.com, for this i tested it up to the fmpro v7, not 8.

i heard about other but i don't tested it yet.

by

Franco

[mcbrady]

Rather than getting filemaker to conrtol the scanner, can anybody comment on the possibility of using an applescript to control Scantango, or other Scanning software, to guide the scanned image into Filemaker?

I'm interested in creating a scanned document library, and be able to pull up all the scanned docs related to each client.

Would it be more realistic to store the filepath to a network drive to provide the solution to 5 or so users? Or to scan them into FM to allow FM Server to provide the distribution?

[Matts Agelii]

I wanted to store all incoming invoices as pdf´s on a server and have all coworkers see them electronically. The FileMaker Plug-ins were to much a headache to me, so I finally came up with a nice workaround. Now everyone using FileMaker is one click away from displaying any invoice.

Rather than having FileMaker scan the invoices we use a HP ScanJet 8290 with document feeder and the included scanner software (win). We put some 40-50 pages into the scanner and in a couple of minutes it delivers a 15MB pdf file. Then I use Adobe Acrobat and a pdf-plugin called "ARTS Pdf split & Merge" for splitting them to individual pdf´s. All the new pdf´s goes in to a specific folder on the fileserver. A webserver serves them from there to any browser.

Basically I store only the invoice number in my FileMaker database, calculating the right URL and a simple "Open URL" script step.

Now we have a few thousand invoices like this its a hell of a workflow. It actually saves us a lot more time than I first thought. Hope this can inspire someone!

The next big step in productivity would be if there were a simple, fast way of using OCR support for the invoice registration process. Anyone came up with a nice FM solution for this?

Best! / Matts