Importing existing TIFF, PDF, MS Office and other documents for conversion or processing.
Connect SimpleIndex to FTP Site
SimpleIndex can import or export files that need to be or have been processed from an FTP site, but it requires that the FTP site be configured as a Windows Drive Letter.
Configuring an FTP site as a Windows Drive Letter isn’t included in Windows, so third party software is required for this. We recommend SSHFS-Win Manager for this, but any tool that will accomplish this will work.
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FastImport to Disable Automatic Processing During Import
SimpleIndex has a variety of processing functions that automatically happen behind the scenes when importing documents to improve the quality and functionality of the images and processing capabilities of the software.
On some occasions these extra processing functions cause delays and conflicts or aren’t needed at all. If these processing functions are causing SimpleIndex to crash or slow down the import processing too much for a particular Job Configuration that can be turned off with a registry setting.
Follow these instructions to add this registry setting:
- Close out of SimpleIndex entirely
- Open the Windows Registry by going to the Windows Search and searching for “RegEdit”
- Go to this location in the Registry Folder Tree: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SimpleIndex\Misc
- In the right section of the Registry window Right Click in the white space and select New>String Value
- Name the new key “FastImport”
- Open the “FastImport” Registry Key, set the value to “1” and then click OK
Stop/Turn Off Image Deletion when Blank is Recognized
In certain cases you will need to be able to read that a page is blank, but not actually want to delete this page. This is especially useful if you want to use a page that isn’t completely blank as a document separator, where the page is always smaller than the rest of the pages in the batch. You can set-up an Autonumber increment to only go up a number when a blank page is read, but not delete that page for later processing.
To set the option to keep a page that is read blank follow the instructions below (SimpleIndex v9.0.30 and higher).
- Right click on the SimpleIndex Job Configuration file (.sic format) that you would like to set this option for and Edit in Notepad or another text editor of your choice. Select “Open With…” then select Notepad.
- Do a search for “KEEP_DELETED” until you find this:
<KEEP_DELETED>false</KEEP_DELETED> - Change the word “false” to “true”
- Save the Job Configuration then close the text editor.
Disable StopFile
If you have many different users running SimpleIndex on different computers saving to the same Output folder, the STOPFILE from one can cause another user to not be able to export to the folder while the original user is outputting to the folder. In this case the STOPFILE can be disabled, so this no longer happens.
This will not work if you have anyone that needs to add files to an existing file in the output folder, so make sure that won’t happen.
Instructions:
- Close SimpleIndex entirely
- Open the Windows Registry by going to the Windows Search and searching for “RegEdit”
- Go to this location in the Registry Folder Tree: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SimpleIndex\Misc
- In the right section of the Registry window Right Click in the white space and select New>String Value
- Name the new key “StopFile”
Continue with Post Process Command Line if Input Folder is Empty
When running multiple jobs in a row or chain with the Post Process Command Line it is possible that an earlier Job in the process won’t have any files. This will stop the Job before reaching the Post Process step and cause later jobs not to run.
This can be corrected by adding an option directly to the XML text of the Job Configuration. This will tell it to keep going to the Post Process step even if there are no files to process in the Job.
Instructions:
- Right click on the Job Configuration file (.sic file format) and select Open With..
- Select Notepad or some other text file opening software.
- Search for this in the text of the file: <POSTPROCEMPTY>false</POSTPROCEMPTY>
- Change the word “false” to the word “true” in that section.
- false = Stop immediately if there are no files to process.
- true = Run the Post Process Command Line even if there are no files to process
- Save the file and close it.
Check and Repair All PDF Files
You can set SimpleIndex to assume that it needs to check every PDF file and fix it.
Go to this location in the Windows Registry:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SimpleIndex\Misc
Create a New String Value called “FixAllPDF” and set the value to 1
How do I limit the number of files pulled from the input folder?
The Max File/Batch setting on the Batch Options tab lets you limit the number of files to process in each batch.
In the wizard it can be found under the Advanced File Input Settings section.
- Published in Import
I have a scanner/copier that creates PDF and TIFF files and saves them to my file server. Can I use SimpleIndex to create a searchable CD/DVD from these files?
This feature is included in SimpleIndex at no additional cost and is called the Media Wizard.
The Media Wizard is located in the “Send” file menu and is called Media Wizard. It allows you to burn your images, indexes, a database and a free SimpleSearch viewer for just the CD or DVD. It also provides an easy way to get the maximum amount of information on the media that you want it on.
You set up the Media Wizard by pointing it to your image folder and database and you select the media that you would like to put it on. It then saves a file folder with all the files that you would need in the size of the media you are using in the location that you designate. You then burn these files using the burning application of your choice.
- Published in Database & Retrieval, Import
How do you select what types of files to process?
You can tell SimpleIndex what types of files it should process and which file types to ignore.
This is done by clicking “Job Options” On the “Batch” tab you will find a field labeled “Input file types or mask”. These are the file types that SimpleIndex will input files from. The default types are:
TIF,PDF,JPG,GIF,BMP,DOC,XLS,PPT,DOCX,XLSX,PPTX,VSD,DWG,AVI,MP3
To process all files, enter *
SimpleIndex will ignore any file whose extension does not appear on the list.
In SimpleIndex 6 or above you can enter file masks to filter input files. Some examples are:
abc*.pdf (PDF files starting with “abc”)
ab??ef.* (All files starting with “ab”, 2 characters and “ef”)
It is possible to have some file types open automatically in their default application. This can be done by inserting a pipe “|” into the list. Any file types after the pipe will be opened in their default application. For example:
TIF,PDF,JPG|WAV,MP3,WMV,AVI
will cause SimpleIndex to display image files and open sound and video files in the default media player.
- Published in Import
Can the original image filename be used as part of the output filename?
The input filename can be specified automatically by configuring a field of type “Filename”. The input file path may also be parsed by the SimpleIndex dictionary and template matching algorithms to extract data fields from the folder and file names.
- Published in Export, Import, Indexing & UI
Is there a way to save the images when a batch is canceled?
At certain points a batch will need to be cancelled before it is complete. In this case you can save the images from the batch, but not the indexes that have been done so far in the batch. When cancelling the batch (File>End Job or Ctrl+N) or closing the software in the middle of the batch a prompt will appear asking to Save the images to the Backup Folder. Upon clicking Yes the files will be saved to the Backup Folder.
The Backup Folder is set per Job Configuration by going to the File menu, selecting Job Settings Wizard, going to the File Input step and expanding Advanced File Input Settings. The Backup Folder will allow you to navigate to the folder you would like to use by clicking “Set…” or by typing the path into the field. This is the folder that the files will go when the batch is cancelled. The files will go to a sub-folder with the name of the folder as the date and time the batch was started.
To start a new batch with these files go to the File menu and select Resume Job. Navigate to the Backup Folder and then open the batch folder and select the files.
The “Backup all input files” checkbox will save the files that were imported from the Input folder to the Backup Folder. The “Move invalid files to backup folder” checkbox will move any files with a Missing field to the Backup Folder.
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- Published in Import, Indexing & UI