General configuration and how-to articles for SimpleIndex.
Is there a way to save the images when a batch is canceled?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Batch Processing reference.
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.
Related Links
- Published in Import, Indexing & UI
How do you create searchable CDs or DVDs that you can distribute royalty-free?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Settings Wizard reference.
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.
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval
What is “Match & Attach” mode?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Database Mode reference.
Match & Attach mode lets you batch update multiple records in a database using the index data from your SimpleIndex job. For example, if you have a large backfile of documents that you want to scan and link to records in an existing database, you can use Match & Attach to find the corresponding record and set the Image Path field to the newly scanned file.
This allows documents to be indexed with a variety of information and then have it find a particular record based on up to three different key indexes in a data source. It can then fill in additional data columns with indexed information along with the full text information, page count, batch ID and image path.
The Match & Attach uses the key field in the “Autofill Settings…” in the Indexing & File Naming step of the Job Settings Wizard in the File menu. Then fills the data into any blank columns for the record in the database and also changes any fields that are different.
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval, Export
How do you configure the Autofill feature?
The Autofill feature of SimpleIndex is an easy way to associate many index fields with one document without retyping data that already exists in another application.
Autofill uses a database lookup to retrieve records that match a key value or values entered by the user or extracted with SimpleIndex. Blank index fields are then filled in automatically with the data from this lookup. The result is a document database with many different possible search fields, of which only one needed to be entered during scanning.
You can use one, two or three index fields as the key values to extract data from your data source. These index fields can be any of the various types of manual and automatic fields. Once the fields are matched the lookup information will get filled in to the Autofill Index fields.
Instructions
- Navigate to the Indexing & File Naming step in the Job Options Wizard under the File menu.
- Create an Index field(s) in SimpleIndex that will be used for the key matching value(s), which will pull the information from the database. This Index field can be any Type other than Autofill.
- Click the “Autofill Settings…” button on the top right.
- Select the “Datasource:” configured in the Database step in the drop down or click the “New Data Source…” button to create a new connection.
- Click the Load button, which loads the data from the database.
- Select the Table or View that the data is in in the “Table or View:” drop down.
- Select the key field from the database that will be used to match against to pull the other data from the other columns in the selected Table or View from the “Database Key Field 1:” drop down. If other index fields are required for matching the correct records select these in “Database Key Field 2:” and “Database Key Field 3:”
- Select the key index field from SimpleIndex that will be entered or extracted and used to match against the database in the “Index Key Field 1:” drop down. If other index fields are required for matching the correct records select these in the “Index Key Field 2:” and “Index Key Field 2:”, making sure that the correct SimpleIndex fields are linked to the correct database columns.
- Click Finish
- Create new Autofill index fields for each piece of additional data needed to be filled in based on the key field(s). The Template for each of the Autofill index fields should be the exact name of the column from the data source that should be filled.
By checking the “Allow manual input in Autofill fields” the users can edit the filled data manually. By checking “Automatically select first matching record” it will select the first record in the table that matches instead of asking which record should be used, when multiple records in the data source have the same data. By checking “Match on single Key Field” it will match on just one of the key fields, instead of requiring all key fields be match, when multiple key matching fields are used. By checking “Cascading List Mode” each autofill field is displayed as a drop down list populated by the records that match the key field(s) and each selection filters the next list for matching values.
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval, Indexing & UI
I finished scanning and found a page that did not get scanned or was scanned incorrectly. How can I correct this?
Unfortunately scanners are never perfect and there is the potential for a pages to be missed or improperly scanned. This can bring up the need to fix this issue by inserting a scan in the batch or rescanning a page. This can easily be done with SimpleIndex.
Instructions for Inserting Missed Page
- Run a Batch with a Job Configuration without “Pre-Index Batch” checked
- Find the page in the batch that is immediately after the missed page
- Place the missing page(s) into the scanner
- Go to the Scan menu, select Insert and Scanned File In Batch
Instructions for Rescanning Page
- Run a Batch with a Job Configuration without “Pre-Index Batch” checked
- Find the page that was incorrectly scanned
- Place the improperly scanned page into the scanner
- Go to the Scan menu and select Rescan Page
Related Links
- Published in Indexing & UI, TWAIN & ISIS Scanning
Can I change the default folder that is displayed when opening job files?
When clicking the Open Job button or selecting Open in the File menu the Job Configuration file is opened. This defaults to c:\Images, but can be set per computer to open any folder including network and web based folders that show up in Windows File Explorer.
Instructions
- Go to the File menu and select Global Settings Wizard
- Select Advanced as the Setup Type
- Click Next to the Default Job Folder step
- Manually type the path or click “Browse…” and navigate to the desired folder
- Close and reopen SimpleIndex
If you chose Configure Advanced Settings on the first panel, you can also set default locations for Input, Output, Log, Backup, and Temp folders in the Default Data Folders step.
Related Links
- Published in Indexing & UI, Licensing & Installation
Can I prevent users from changing the Job Options?
In certain cases the SimpleIndex users should not have access to the Job Configuration settings, so the options for the Job Configuration cannot be changed. These Job Settings Wizard options can be locked, so they can only be accessed with the correct password.
Instructions
- Go to the File menu and select Global Settings Wizard
- Select Advanced as the Setup Type
- Click Next to the Security Settings Step
- Enter the desired password under Job Settings Password in both “Password” and “Confirm”
Once set the Job Configuration Wizard can’t be accessed on any Job Configurations on this computer without the password.
Other security options are also available in the Security Settings step such as disabling Print/Email/Export features and making annotations permanent
Related Links
- Published in Indexing & UI, Licensing & Installation
How can I configure SimpleIndex to perform bates stamping or page numbering for my images?
This is all done through the electronic imprinting features, which puts the desired information electronically on the output images that are saved in your output folder. This is all done in SimpleIndex by clicking going to the File menu, selecting Job Settings Wizard and then going to the Imprinting step.
To implement bates stamping or page numbering click the ‘Enable Imprinting’ check box and also the ‘Imprint page numbers’ check box. This is the most basic method, but there are also features which allow you to manipulate what this information is, what it looks like and where on the page it will go.
The ‘Font Size’ field allows you to choose what point font you would like the imprinted value to be.
The ‘Page # Length’ lets you determine how many digits you would like the page number or bates number to be. It will add leading zeros to the page number based on the number you enter into this field. This is used to keep images with page numbers in the proper order when saving them. EX. If you put 4 into the ‘Page # Length’ field the number will read starting at 0001 and will count up from there always keeping the page number 4 digits long.
If you would like leading characters on the front of the page number you can add these to the ‘Imprint Text or Image’ field and they will appear in front of the page number. These pages will appear as (leading characters) – (page number). If you would like them to appear directly next to each other you would remove everything from the ‘Separator’ field, because this field is what is inserted between the imprint values. EX. You want the page numbers to read PMB#####. You would put PMB in the ‘Imprint Text’ field, remove everything from the ‘Imprint Separator’ field and put 5 in the ‘Page # Length’ field.
You will then decide where you want this information to appear on the image. If you want the page number on the top of the image do not check the box marked ‘Measure X,Y from bottom-right’ if you want page number on the bottom of the image check this box. Next, set up the X and Y coordinates to have the imprinted information located in the section of the image that you would like it. The X coordinate measures from top to bottom (bottom to top when ‘Measure X,Y from bottom-right’ is checked) and the Y coordinate measures from left to right (right to left when ‘Measure X,Y from bottom-right’ is checked). The unit of measurement of the X and Y coordinates are pixels. The number of pixels per page change based on the resolution or dpi (dots per inch) that the image was scanned at. So if you are scanning at 200 dpi 1 inch = 200, but at 300 dpi 1 inch = 300 and so on. EX. You have a 300 dpi, 8.5×11″ image that you want to imprint page numbers on the bottom left of the image an inch and a half from the the left and bottom of the page. You would want to have ‘Measure X,Y from bottom-right’ checked, 1950 in the ‘X coordinate’ field (6.5″ from right x 300 dpi) and 450 in the ‘Y coordinate’ field (1.5″ from bottom x 300 dpi).
Related Links
- Published in Export, Imprinting & Watermarking
How do I connect to an SQL Server database?
SimpleIndex has the ability to export, query or autofill from an SQL database. This allows you to upload data that is indexed with SimpleIndex to a table or view, search against the database or pull information from the database based on a key value.
Insert New Data
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Database step
- Set the Database Mode to Insert New Records
- Click the “New Data Source…: button
- Select the SQL Database radio button and click Next
- Fill in the “Server:”, “Database:”, “Username:” and “Password” for the SQL Database
- Click the “Build” button to generate the Database Connection String
- Click the “Test” button to confirm SimpleIndex is connected to the Database properly
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or View that needs to be Inserted to
- Link all of the fields in SimpleIndex to the columns in the database that they should Insert to
Search Existing Data
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Database step
- Set the Database Mode to Retrieve and View Records
- Click the “New Data Source…: button
- Select the SQL Database radio button and click Next
- Fill in the “Server:”, “Database:”, “Username:” and “Password” for the SQL Database
- Click the “Build” button to generate the Database Connection String
- Click the “Test” button to confirm SimpleIndex is connected to the Database properly
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or View that needs to be Inserted to
- Link all of the fields in SimpleIndex to the columns in the database that they should Insert to
Autofill Based on Key Values
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Indexing & File Naming Step
- Click the “Autofill Settings…” button
- Select the SQL Database radio button and click Next
- Fill in the “Server:”, “Database:”, “Username:” and “Password:” for the SQL Database
- Click the “Build” button to generate the Database Connection String
- Click the “Test” button to confirm SimpleIndex is connected to the Database properly
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or View that needs to be Inserted to
- Select the key field for the database column in the “Database Key Field 1:”
- Select the key field for the SimpleIndex index field in the “Index Key Field 1:”
- Set-up the Autofill fields that need to be filled in based on the key field
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval
How do I connect to an existing Access database?
SimpleIndex has the ability to export, query or autofill from an Access database. This allows you to upload data that is indexed with SimpleIndex to a table or query, search against the database or pull information from the database based on a key value.
Insert New Data
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Database step
- Set the Database Mode to Insert New Records
- Click the “New Data Source…: button
- Select the Microsoft Access radio button and click Next
- Click “Browse…” button under “Access Database:”, browse to the database file, select it and click Open
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or Query that needs to be Inserted to
- Link all of the fields in SimpleIndex to the columns in the database that they should Insert to
Search Existing Data
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Database step
- Set the Database Mode to Retrieve and View Records
- Click the “New Data Source…: button
- Select the Microsoft Access radio button and click Next
- Click “Browse…” button under “Access Database:”, browse to the database file, select it and click Open
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or Query that needs to be Inserted to
- Link all of the fields in SimpleIndex to the columns in the database that they should Insert to
Autofill Based on Key Values
- Open the Job Settings Wizard and go to the Indexing & File Naming Step
- Click the “Autofill Settings…” button
- Click the “New Data Source…: button
- Select the Microsoft Access radio button and click Next
- Click “Browse…” button under “Access Database:”, browse to the database file, select it and click Open
- Click the “Load” button under “Table or View:” and then select the Table or Query that is being filled from
- Select the key field for the database column in the “Database Key Field 1:”
- Select the key field for the SimpleIndex index field in the “Index Key Field 1:”
- Set-up the Autofill fields that need to be filled in based on the key field
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval
How do I automatically delete blank pages from duplex documents?
This is done using the Minimum File Size drop down in the Blank Page Deletion section of the Image Enhancement step of the Job Settings Wizard. This setting uses the image file size in bytes to determine which files are blank pages.
In this box you would put the number of bytes for the threshold for which documents are considered to be blank, which will be deleted and those considered non-blank that should be kept. If the scanned or imported image file is smaller than the number in bytes for the file size then it will be deleted and if it is higher it will be kept.
For 200dpi, compressed, black & white TIFF images (the default format used by SimpleIndex) this is usually around 2500 bytes and 300dpi, compressed, black & white TIFF images (the default for OCR) is usually around 7500.
Depending on your scanner settings and how much black is in your images, blank pages could be significantly larger. If you are scanning small pages the margin for error will be less. You will want to do some trial and error testing to ensure the setting is right for your images.
Related Links
- Published in TWAIN & ISIS Scanning
How can I improve recognition rates for my OCR fields?
There are several things you can do to improve accuracy for OCR.
- Scan at 300dpi, black & white for best results.
- Adjust the scan settings to remove background noise and improve the definition of characters.
- For Zone OCR, field recognition can often vary based on the surrounding white space and text in the zone. Try varying the size of the zone to achieve optimal results.
- For template matching, make sure all variations of the field format are included in the template list.
- For dictionary matching, add common variations and OCR mistakes to the “thesaurus” list.
- On the Zones & OCR tab (accessed from the Job Options) you can adjust the Max Errors setting to allow for more mistakes in the dictionary matching process.
- Use the Strip Spaces, Strip Characters, Replace Characters and Case Fixing options to standardize the field format prior to matching.
Please refer to the SimpleIndex Wiki for details on how to configure these options.
Related Links
- SimpleIndex.com – Zone OCR
- SimpleIndex.com – Dynamic OCR
- SimpleOCR.com – OCR Guide
- SimpleIndex Wiki – OCR
- SimpleIndex Wiki – OCR Options
- SimpleIndex Wiki – Zone OCR
- SimpleIndex Wiki – Full Page OCR
- SimpleIndex Wiki – Zones & OCR Settings
- SimpleIndex Wiki – OCR to Field
- SimpleIndex Wiki – OCR Text View
- SimpleIndex Wiki – Template & Dictionary Matching OCR
- SimpleIndex Wiki – OMR and OCR Document Separation
- Published in OCR
I know nothing about databases. Can I still use the database and Retrieval Mode features?
Yes! We’ve made it simple to create a database that you can use to store index information and perform searches with SimpleIndex Retrieval Mode.
Once you have configured a SimpleIndex job to scan and store documents on your network, use these steps to create a database to store index information for searching:
- Go to the Database step in the Job Settings Wizard
- Click “New Data Source…”
- Select Default and then click Next
- Click Yes when asked to “Copy default database to config file folder and configure settings?”
- The database will be copied to the folder that the Job Configuration is saved in and the name of the database will be the same name as the Job Configuration with all of the fields in SimpleIndex
This creates a database and automatically links it to your SimpleIndex Job Configuration for uploading to or searching from.
Related Links
- Published in Database & Retrieval
Can OCR text be saved to Office, Text, HTML or other formats?
Yes. On the OCR step of the Job Settings Wizard you can select the text output format need in the “Full-page OCR file type” drop down. By default it is set to PDF, but can be changed to Text (txt), Word (docx), Rich Text (rtf), Open Office (odt), Excel (xlsx), PowerPoint (pptx), ePub Zip (epub), FictionBook (fb2), HTML (htm), XML (xml) or Alto XML (alto.xml).
If the output file type is set to PDF, OCR text will be embedded as hidden text in the PDF file.
Related Links
- Published in Licensing & Installation, OCR
How are Simple Software products licensed?
All Simple Software products are licensed with three different license types:
- Workstation – Per computer license, with one license needed for each computer that runs the software.
- Concurrent – Shared license that can be installed on any number of computers, but only one computer at a time per license can run the software at a time.
- Subscription – Monthly cost with a 6 month minimum that uses the Concurrent license.
The demo version is “activated” online using a serial number generated for your organization. All licenses purchased for each application can be activated with the same serial or separate serials upon request. If there isn’t an internet connection or security blocks connection to the SimpleIndex license server and offline activation can be done.
The license can be transferred to another PC. Check out the FAQ for Activating and Transferring licenses for further details.
A Server Processing Add-on license is required when SimpleIndex is need to run automatically as a background process using the Windows Service. The Server Processing Add-on license can be added to any version of SimpleIndex to enable 1 million pages per year of unattended server processing. Additional server add-ons can be activated to add increments of 1M pages per year. There is also an Advanced Barcode Server Add-on license for running SimpleIndex as a Windows Service with an unlimited page count only for recognizing barcodes.
Click here for a PDF version of the price list and a feature matrix that shows which features are included in each version.
You can learn more about product activation here.
Related Links
- Published in Licensing & Installation
Can SimpleIndex create searchable PDF Image+Text files with hidden text?
Yes, it can. You can configure this setting in the Job Settings Wizard by going to the OCR step and checking “Enable full-page OCR”. There are many settings in the OCR step that you can used to customize the output and recognition of images.
SimpleIndex has two different OCR engines (Standard and Professional) that can be used to produced PDF Image + Text files or Searchable PDFs.
Related Links
- Published in Export, OCR, Office PDF Text Processing