I’m wondering whether anyone can make some suggestions as to what would be a good document management system for Mac OS X. These are my requirements:

- scanner support (i.e., capturing images from a flat-bed scanner; the ability to create multi-page images / PDFs would be a plus)
- file import
- ability to categorise / index documents (the main type of document this system would be used for is expense invoices; being able include a few details in the system about the imaged document would be useful)
- ability to quickly search for and view documents

So far I have had a quick look at a few systems found via Google searches, including:

- http://mindwrap.com/
- http://www.o3spaces.com/Page/sp130/ml2/from_sp_id=129/nctrue/system_id=129/so_id=251/Index.html
- http://www.receiptwallet.com/

After having a quick look at these systems, I thought there might be a few others that would be worthwhile having a look at.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated. In case you’re wondering, I’d be looking at using this system within a small family business (so a 1,000 user, $xxx,xxx.xx system isn’t required).

After a long time testing, I guess the new iDocument will be the proper Mac document manager . It provides me with good management experience, especially with PDFs.

I may be just revealing my ignorance about what you need, but what exactly would this be offering that you can’t already do by keeping your files organized in folders on a central fileserver? Hard drives and Spotlight exist solely to manage your documents!

If you want something that allows collaboration, would a Google Docs account suffice? You are able to upload PDFs that you scanned, and for your current word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files, it retains past versions for easy undoing of changes.

Funny this thread should popup after such a long time.

There are two Mac-based document management systems that fit the description - DEVONthink Pro Office and Evernote Premium: http://theappleblog.com/2009/02/06/faceoff-devonthink-pro-office-vs-evernote-premium/

For those who are interested to hear how this two year tread turned out, I ended up going with DEVONthink Pro Office.

Having a single system that encompasses imaging, file management, sharing and remote access makes everything easier. True, you could get the same result by imaging documents through Image Capture, managing documents through Finder, searching for using Spotlight, uploading documents to a file server and uploading documents to Google Docs. But having all this functionality in one system really makes the process a whole lot easier.

Hello,

I can understand that managing can be a bit difficult especially if you do not have the right tools.

I found one of the best ways to manage my projects is to use a document management system from Documentcollaboration.org. It is generally comprised of Open Source Collaboration, Free Document Collaboration, PDF Document Collaboration, Real Time Document Collaboration, Microsoft SharePoint Alternatives etc.

I recommend that you should check it to solve all your managing issues.

Regards
Sania

There are two terms that are useful to know with respect to managing files and documents:

1.  File Management - this is the way your operating system (Mac OS X) helps you manage your files.  On the Mac, like on Windows and Linux, this is done using folders and filenames that you create.  This is fine if you are managing a limited number of files on just one Mac.  However, if you need to manage boatloads of files and documents in a central location for multiple users, you need a….

2.  Document Management System - Unlike the native OS methods for organizing files, a document management system manages the files centrally on a server.  Instead of finding files using named folders and filenames that you have to remember, you define an indexing (metadata) scheme that allows you to define multiple pieces of info about a file or document (name, SSN, student ID, part affiliation, gender, anything), and when you store a file to the central server, a record is created in a database.  It is easier to find a file under this scheme.  Why?  instead of everyone having to remember the proper folder hierarchy and specific filename for a document, they only have to remember one of many possible pieces of index data (name, SSN, etc).  The database returns a hitlist in seconds and you pick the file you need.  *Much* faster and files do not get lost.

Document Management systems are often related to Workflow, which allows you electronically move files from “desktop” to “desktop” or group to group electronically rather than having to physically move a folder, and it is used to speed up common business practices.

There are many other aspects to managing your files and documents - scanning, text search, OCR, forms, etc. 

If you would like to learn more about any of these topics from people that have been building document management and workflow systems for macs for over 22 years, visit us at http://www.mindwrap.com.

If you are a single-user office, you can also try our scan-to-pdf solution for free at http://www.scantango.com.

Hope this helps,

Craig Landrum, CTO
Mindwrap, Inc.