Redaction and security – Read this first

You can use PixEdit or PixView to redact, or censor, confidential information in a document by “blacking out” selected words or sentences. PixEdit and PixView offer a safe way to do this, even on documents that contains hidden OCR text. Even though PixEdit and PixView does this in a safe way, it is still recommended to read though the following information about security aspects of redaction.

Redaction directly on paper before scanning   Avoid using ink for manual redaction directly on the original paper document. The reason is that modern software such as PixEdit® or PhotoShop® in some cases may be used to separate the ink redaction from the text if the document has been scanned in greyshade or full color mode. If the document has already been manually redacted, you may consider using PixEdit or PixView to re-redact after scanning to make sure that the ink cannot be removed digitally. If you do not want to re-redact, consider to scanning your document in pure black/white mode or reduce the color depth after scanning by using the PixEdit menu Image, Colors, Convert to black and white. Ink redactions in pure black and white documents are usually impossible to remove by digital means.  

Digitally born documents   Note that redaction by putting black color over sensitive words by the use of a word processor and then export the file to PDF is not a safe method. The reason is that some combinations of word processors and PDF export software may include the redacted text itself beneath the black color in the final PDF file. By the use of ordinary software, the black layer may easily be removed so that the redacted text is revealed. If you use PixEdit or PixView to redact digitally born documents however, the redacted text will be permanently removed.

Redacting using non-dedicated software Some general PDF editors may simply add a layer of black above text in scanned documents without removing the text itself. If you use a general PDF editor with unsuitable graphic tools for redacting, you should check if the redacted text as well as any invisible OCR layer is really gone after saving. PixEdit however, always permanently removes graphics as well as hidden OCR-text in scanned documents when you use, for example, filled rectangles. It is handier however, to use the dedicated redaction tool in PixEdit or PixView.

Partly translucent pages Note that when scanning partly translucent documents, some information may leak between opposite pages especially if you scan in grayscale or full color mode. This information leak may be almost invisible to the eye, and sometimes even undetectable. However, such faint information can be enhanced by modern software and be made readable by a technically skilled operator.

Figure: A real-world example of retrieved text from the opposite side of a thin, scanned front page. Only the front page was scanned. The text from the opposite page was enhanced and mirrored by PixEdit.

For the above reason, redacted, double sided, thin pages may create a special security problem. Please consider to scan such documents in black/white mode or to convert the scanned document to black/white using Image, Colors, Convert to black and white before or after redaction. As an alternative, use Image, Colors, Drop color and select white with a tolerance of 5%. This will usually remove any leaked graphics from opposite pages.

 Redacting

The redaction tool provides a safe way of censoring both digitally born and scanned documents. Any hidden OCR text as well as the graphic representation of the redacted text will be permanently removed. It will not be possible to retrieve the redacted text after saving a redacted document.

How to redact  Activate the redaction tool and select the area you want to redact.  The selected area will be blacked out.  If you have PixEdit with the OCR option, PixEdit will offer to search for other instatnce of the same word you have just redacted so they too, will be redacted automatically.  The tool style window must be visible in order to do this. Press F10 if the tool style window is not visible.  Theis option is not available in PixView.

When redacting documents that are not digitally born, PixEdit uses OCR-technology to search for candidates to be redacted. If the document has poor quality, the automatic search function may not find all candidates. It is therefore good practice to always check if all candidates have been found after automatic redaction.

When redacting documents that are not digitally born, PixEdit uses OCR-technology to search for candidates to be redacted. If the document has poor quality, the automatic search function may not find all candidates. It is therefore good practice to always check if all candidates have been found after automatic redaction.

You can configure PixEdit to execute almost any operation sequence automatically after you have scanned a batch of documents. If you are using DocServer in PixEdit, the after scan processing will be executed while you are scanning the next batch of documents.

Independent of scanner type and brand, PixEdit offers automatic document separation using barcodes, quality enhancements, page size detection, automatic orientation, automatic deskew and blank page removal, automatic color and resolution optimization (ACRO), OCR using the OCR snap-in module so your saved PDF’s becomes searchable, automatic saving to any supported file format using barcodes, incrementing file names or time/date, execution of custom made macros and much more.

Although you will find a lot of useful functions for after-scan processing, your business may have very special requirements that do not exist in the After Scanning dialog. As an example, let’s say you want to always join three and three pages automatically after scanning (this is a quite uncommon occurrence, so this serves as a good example in this case). You can do this with the help of a macro. Simply open a document, click the macro record button and join three and three pages and specify “All pages” in the join dialog. Stop recording and give your newly recorded macro a name, for example, “My special joining”. Now click the Configure button in the After Scanning section of ScanBar, and under the General tab, select your recorded macro from the drop-down list. Three and three pages will now always be joined after completed scanning. Remember to check the Enable option in ScanBar to enable after-scan processing.

You may create many different after-scan profiles, and then load them depending on your various scanning tasks during a production day. Select the profile to be used in the drop-down list in ScanBar. You can create and manage profiles in the Profile tab in the After Scanning dialog.

To configure the automatic after scanning process, click the Configure button just below the big green button in ScanBar. If ScanBar is not visible, press Shift-F10. The dialog box for configuring After Scanning is divided into several tabs. These tabs are: General processing, Job Separation, Forms Processing and Saving. You will also find a separate tab for managing after scanning profiles.

If you always use the same configuration, you don’t need to use profiles. However, if you would like to be able to switch rapidly between different types of processing after scanning, using profiles is a good practice.

Note: you don’t have to wait until the after scanning process has finished before scanning the next batch. You can leave the processing to DocServer by checking the “Processed scanned document with DocServer” option. DocServer will then process your batch in background while you continue to scan the next batch. If you would like to inspect the automated process, uncheck this option. When using DocServer or Continuous Network scanning, any errors during processing will not halt processing. Instead, batches that fail will be stored in a folder called “not_processed” in the original source folder so that the automated after scan processing can continue.

The General tab

The general tab contains settings for all types of general processing such as deskew, removal of blank pages, image cleanups, execution of macros, OCR (option), automatic page size, automatic orientation and much more. The following options are available:

Enable after scan processing Check this option to enable the automatic after scan processing

Automatic color and resolution optimization (ACRO) Use this option to let PixEdit automatically decide which pages in the document that should be stored in color, in greyscale or in black/ white. In addition, you can configure individual resolution parameters for the different detected page types. You must configure ScanBar to scan in full color in order to utilize ACRO.

Enhance contrast Some scanners may deliver pages with low contrast. To make text darker and grey backgrounds brighter, check this option. For normal documents, choose a value between one and four percent. Bright areas will be brighter and dark areas will be darker within the limits of maximum contrast. Some rare pages may have general low contrast, but may still also contain areas with maximum and minimum brightness. In such cases you may want to adjust the clip value even higher. Contrast enhancement functions only on color or grey scale pages, and is designed for optimum performance on scanned letters, invoices and similar materials.

Toning Toning is an advanced form of contrast enhancement with more adjustment possibilities. For example, you can choose to only enhance the contrast in the dark or bright areas. Toning is designed for use by scanner specialists and support personnel.

Deskew automatically The automatic deskew function examines the document and corrects any skew introduced by the scanning process. PixEdit will look for text lines or nearly horizontal graphics and then deskew each page accordingly.

Remove blank pages This function automatically removes blank pages. In some cases, blank pages may contain a small amount of graphics because of dark scanner settings or spots on the original document. You may therefore want to adjust the default 0.06% value of acceptable noise level up to 0.1 %. Some blank pages may also contain some extra graphics on the edges. For this reason, PixEdit may be configured to ignore a specified area along the edges before analyzing. If you get blank pages in your documents after having used this function, you should always try to increase the margin values before increasing the noise level value.

Remove black borders Some scanners can deliver a black border around each scanned page. PixEdit can use this information to automatically crop the page to the original paper size, making it possible to scan different pages sizes in one single batch. You can also configure PixEdit to simply remove the black border without cropping by unchecking “Detect page size and crop automatically”.

Automatically crop half size pages If your scanner cannot deliver black borders around pages, you can still scan a mix of A and B-sized pages and crop automatically by enabling this option. This method may not give as accurate results as the Remove black borders option.

Process using the following macro Although you will find a lot of useful functions for after-scan processing, your business may have very special requirements that do not exist under the General tab. As an example, let’s say you want to always join three and three pages automatically after scanning (this is a quite uncommon occurrence, so this serves as a good example in this case). You can do this with the help of a macro. Simply open a document, click the macro record button and join three and three pages and specify “All pages” in the join dialog. Stop recording and give your newly recorded macro a name, for example, “My special joining”. Now click the Configure button in the After Scanning section of ScanBar, and under the General tab, select your recorded macro from the drop-down list. Three and three pages will now always be joined after completed scanning.

Recognize text using OCR If you want to produce searchable files, check this option. Just note that you also must specify PDF as file format under the Saving tab. You must have PixEdit with the OCR option to create searchable PDF files.

Automatic page orientation Pages may sometimes be scanned with wrong orientation by mistake. Use this option to automatically correct such pages. Automatic page orientation is only available if you have PixEdit with the OCR option.

Open and view the saved documents (inspection) To inspect each scanned page after saving, check this option. Each page will be displayed a configured amount of time. If you have completed your inspection before the specified amount of time, hit space bar on your keyboard to skip to the next page.

Show me the saved files in the thumbnail bar The thumbnail bar will be displayed, showing the automatically saved files as small thumbnails directly after scanning. Holding the cursor over a thumbnail will display a larger view. To open the file for close inspection, double click the thumbnail. You may also drag a thumbnail into the page composition window at any desired place in your current open document.

Delete source files from network scanner When clicking the green scan button or by double clicking a thumbnail in network scanning mode, the file will always be removed from the network scanning source folder. However, a copy of the original unprocessed file will always be stored in a “processed” folder created in the source folder unless you check this option. Keeping these copies in the “Processed” folder may be useful in case something goes wrong in the after scan processing, or if the specified saving location is temporary unavailable. If you keep this option unchecked, you will not need to rescan your pages if something goes wrong. Instead, you can just re-process the batch of failed documents using the same network scanning profile, or drag them into a suitable profile in DocServer for background batch processing.

Report processing results in a log file Choose this option to report results of the after scanning process to a log file. This option is useful for finding possible problems when designing complex production environments.

The Separation tab

Separation is an important part of production scanning, as it is normally more efficient to fill the entire document tray with a batch of documents and let PixEdit separate each document in the after scanning process. This is especially true if each document contains few pages.

To indicate the beginning of a new document in a batch, you can use barcode stickers on the first page of each document or barcode separation sheets between documents. The content of the barcode normally indicates the document file name. You may use the same barcode sticker or separation sheet. In that case PixEdit will add an incrementing number to each file. If each separation indicator contains several barcodes or stickers, PixEdit will combine these to create the file name. The barcode content may not necessarily contain the entire file name, as you can combine the original file name (if you use network scanning) with the file name extracted from the barcode.

PixEdit is compatible with many document management systems, and will automatically detect separation sheets from these systems and act according to their specifications. For more information about specifications, contact the producer of you document management system. You may also use Tools, Create Barcode Separation Sheet in PixEdit to make separation sheets. These can be used as standard document separators, in addition to be used to automatically send the document by e-mail.

If you are creating your own barcodes stickers, make sure that you are using a large enough font so that they can be read easily by your scanner. Using a font size with two characters per cm (five characters per inch) should normally give you a good safety margin at 300 DPI when using barcode Type 39. Make sure you have a 3 mm (1/8 inch) white border around the barcode itself.

Barcode stickers may be placed anywhere on a page, but must attached nearly horizontally or vertically (if specified) on the paper. It does not matter if you place the sticker upside down.

PixEdit will ignore barcodes with a hand-drawn line across the sticker. Use this method if your document contains pages with barcodes that you would like PixEdit to ignore.

Separation method – Separate all pages Choose this option to separate each page in the batch as a single page document. This is useful if you are only scanning single page documents. Naturally, there is no need to use separation sheets when separating all pages.

Separation method – Automatic document separation using separation sheets Choose this option if you are using barcode stickers or separate separation sheets. The barcode type should be Type 39. The document is detached from the batch and given the name specified in the barcode. If more than one barcode is found, the name will be a combination of the detected barcodes. The document is just prepared with the name, but not saved. Details about file format, compression methods, naming conventions and so on should be defined under the Saving tab.

Change document orientation by rotating You can use this option to turn all pages, or every second page in any direction you prefer. This option is useful when you scan portrait batches in landscape to shorten scanning time. Some scanners deliver every second page turned ±90 degrees when you scan landscape documents. To correct such situations, enable this option and choose the turn method in the drop down list.

By default, PixEdit looks for horizontal barcodes only. The reason is that printed letters often already contain vertical barcodes on the left hand side. Vertical barcodes are ignored. However, by using the rotation option, you can let PixEdit look for vertical, instead of horizontal barcodes. If you use this method, you must counter rotate the document back to normal orientation using a PixEdit macro under the general tab.

Number of barcodes on separation sheet It is a good practice to specify how many barcodes you are using as separation indicators to increase production reliability. PixEdit will issue an error message if a different number of barcodes than specified are detected. By checking Ignore pages with a non matching barcode count, PixEdit will ignore all barcodes and treat these like ordinary pages and ignore all barcodes. If you are using the special Techsoft barcode separation sheet (Tools, Create Barcode Separation Sheet), no specification of barcodes is necessary.

Search for barcodes on the upper By default, PixEdit will look for barcodes on the entire page. Using this option, you may instruct PixEdit to look for barcodes only on, for example, the upper 20% of each page.

Threshold for grayscale/color conversion Normally you don’t need to change the default value of 128. If you experience errors during barcode detection, you may need to adjust this value. Beware that an incorrect value may result in lost barcodes. This setting does not affect or alter the page, as it is only used internally by PixEdit during barcode detection. This setting should only be altered by service personnel or system administrators.

Ignore pages with any barcodes less than In rare cases, a page may contain graphics looking like barcodes. If this option is not checked, PixEdit will issue an error message when such graphics are detected. Normally, a barcode lookalike will be decoded to contain between two and four characters. If the number of characters in genuine barcodes contains several more characters than this, it is good practice to set this value to a low number to prevent unnecessary error messages.

Ignore barcodes that does not contain the following characters Your documents may already contain barcodes that you would like to ignore during production. If your own barcodes always contains, for example, the text “ab”, you can specify that any barcode that does not contain “ab” should be ignored. Optionally you can let PixEdit remove the specified text from the final file name by checking Remove the specified characters from the generated filename.

The barcodes must contain If your barcodes always contain a specific number of characters, you may specify this number here. PixEdit will issue an error message if detected barcodes does not contain the specified number of characters.

Barcodes are numeric only Check this option to let PixEdit warn you if a non-numeric barcode is detected.

Verify start and stop characters in barcodes Some barcode label writers add start and stop characters (“*”) to barcodes. Choose this option to let PixEdit issue an error message if start or stop characters is missing from a detected barcode.

Always add an incrementing number to the end of the file name Use this option to add an incrementing file number to separated documents

Include barcode separation sheet in separated document This option should be checked if you are using barcode stickers attached to the first page in each document. If you are using separate separator sheets however, uncheck this option.

Remove any blank page after the separation sheet If you are using separate separation sheets, check this option to remove the blank flipside. You don’t need to use this option if you already use the Remove blank pages option in the General tab.

The Forms tab (PixEdit with OCR only)

The Forms tab lets you extract information from scanned forms directly after scanning, with or without saving the raster forms. Regardless if your task is to extract form data automatically after scanning a batch, or by using the Batch Wizard you will first need to define a form original. To learn how to create a form original, read Defining and creating forms.

If you use the content from your forms to create file names for raster files (if enabled), any naming convention you specify in the Saving tab will be ignored.

If you often process new types of forms, it may be easier to do forms processing using the Batch Wizard instead of processing them using the Forms tab in After Scanning. The reason is that an untested, newly defined form may contain errors, and you will then have to rescan the batch instead of just re-process a saved batch using the Batch Wizard. It is a good idea to first learn forms processing using the Batch Wizard before using this functionality in After Scanning.

Forms processing Check this option to enable forms processing in After Scanning. You cannot use general separation using separator sheets or barcode stickers at the same time as you use forms processing. The reason is that the defined form original defines how many pages there are in each form.

If your only task is to separate the forms from the batch into separate document files without extracting data, you can just define an empty form consisting of the number of pages you would like to have in each separated document. The most common use however, is of course to extract data such as text, check marks, numbers and so on.

Current selected form for processing This is where you specify which form original to use during data extraction.

Save extracted form data You may want to uncheck this option when testing a new form original to avoid producing unnecessary data files.

Forms data layout Use this option to specify how you want to store your extracted data. Choose between saving each form in separate files, each batch in separate files, or the entire project in a separate file.

Forms data format Extracted data can be saved in formatted text or XML. Each field will be separated with Tab and each form with a newline character if you choose formatted text.

Save extracted form data in the following directory Type the path or use the Browse button to specify where to save extracted data.

Use content from the forms title item as filename(s) Title items are used for creating file names from extracted fields in forms. If you have defined title items in your original form, this option can be used to create file names based on the content from these fields. Title items can be extracted from numbers, text and barcodes. This option overrides any naming rules specified in the Saving tab.

Convert true color pages to monochrome during processing If you choose to save not only the extracted forms data, but also the original raster forms, you may want to convert any raster forms scanned in full color to pure black/white forms to save storage space. Click the Options button to choose a suitable conversion method.

Error handling Choosing between correcting errors during or after processing. If you choose to correct errors during processing, the extraction process will halt while you correct errors. For larger jobs you may prefer to let the process run unattended and correct errors after processing.

The Saving tab

The saving tab specifies where the current profile should save produced documents, as well as the file format and compression type. Any specification in the saving tab may be overridden by content found in barcodes if specified in the Separation tab. You may also close the generated file name and create unique folders with the same file name as the document.

PixEdit is capable of saving your documents in many different file formats and compression types. The most popular choice is PDF and TIFF. PDF is the only format that offers to store OCR information, so if you need to make your documents searchable, choose PDF as saving format.

If the separation tab specifies that file names should be extracted from barcode stickers or separate separation sheets, or if the Forms processing tab (OCR version only) specifies that file names be extracted from defined item fields, any file name specification in the Saving tab will be overridden. The saving tab offers several ways to automatically name your files, such as date/time, name incrementation and so on.

Save the scanned document as follows: You don’t need to save your scanned document automatically after scanning. If you choose to not save document, each document will be prepared with a file name according to your specification but not physically saved on disk. The document will remain open in PixEdit under a tab in the user interface. If you choose not to save your documents automatically, PixEdit will after a short while have many documents open at the same time. This will affect the performance of the after scan processing, since having many open documents require substantial memory resources from the computer. You will need to have several gigabytes RAM installed in your PC if you need to have many documents open at the same time.

Save in the following directory This choice defines the main directory to be used for automatic saving of your documents. By using the additional option Create sub folder based on the file name, an additional sub-folder will be created.

Save as type Specifies file type to be used. Choose between PDF Raster, PDF/A-1b Raster (ISO standard), PDF/A-1b Compact (ISO Standard), TIFF and TDF. Unless you have compatibility issues with your document management system, it’s recommended to use either PDF/A-1b Raster or PDF/A-1b Compact since they conform to the ISO standard.

PDF/A files can be stored using several different compression methods. The most commonly used compression type is JPG for color pages and CCITT Gr.IV or JBIG for black and white pages, due to its high compression rate. Now – the ISO standard states that “JPEG is not recommended” in PDF/A files. The main reason for this statement is probably that JPG is a destructive compression method, since each time a page with JPG compression is saved, the quality is slightly degraded. However, the ISO standard does not forbid using JPG as compression method. Before using JPG as compression method in your PDF files, you should therefore check company policies. If you want to use a non-destructive compression method, chose Deflate.

To keep the file size small while still conforming to ISO PDF/A, choose the PDF/A-b Compact file format. Important: Make sure you have set up ScanBar to 300 DPI, full color, and that you have chosen ACRO under the General tab when using this very compact file format. The files will typically be 5-8 times smaller than files with the JPG compression method. PDF/A-b Compact is suitable for ordinary post and general documents, but less suitable for technical drawings. Compact compression is not suitable for large format documents.

Filename generation PixEdit offers several methods for automatic filename generation. If you have specified generation of filenames from barcodes or from item fields, any filename generation in this tab will be ignored.

Choose between date/time, incrementing filename, incrementing file extension and original filename. If you have a long production line with several PixEdit licenses in series using network scanning mode, choose original filename to keep the same name though out the entire production line.

Print status sheet on default printer In larger production lines, the number of scanned batches are high. It is good practice to let PixEdit automatically print out a status sheet as soon as a batch has been scanned, and then put this page on top of the scanned batch. The status sheet contains relevant information about the scanned batch, such as the number of pages, the number of separated documents, date and time scanned and so on. Some users prefer to use colored sheets in the printer so that they can be found and seen easily.

Append document title to original filename Check this option if you would like the final filename to be a combination of the original filename and the one generated. Some production lines are using this option to track the machine and scanner name(s) used for a particular document.

Close document after saving Unless you need to keep scanned documents open after completed processing, check this option. Keeping many documents open at the same time may reduce processing performance, unless you have several gigabytes of RAM installed in your computer.

The Profile tab

Setting up an after scan process often involves configuring all tabs in the After Scanning dialog box. If you quickly need to switch between two or more production configurations, you should consider storing your different configurations in after scanning profiles, rather than reconfiguring current profile. You activate a profile by selecting it in ScanBar.

Profiles also enable you to run several types of production types at the same time by using DocServer.

Notice that when you select a different scanning profile (in the upper part of ScanBar), the corresponding after scanning profile will be activated. In other words, the after scanning profile “follows” the scanning profile.

All changes you make in the current after scanning profile will be stored in this profile. To make a new profile based on current profile, click New and give the new profile a suitable name. All subsequent changes will be saved in this profile. To delete current profile, click Delete.

The DocServer window processes documents at the same time as you are scanning or working manually with documents, and is a fully integrated part of PixEdit. DocServer can serve and process an unlimited number of folders that are continuously filled with documents from network scanners and/or multi functional devices. The most common use of DocServer however, is to process the last scanned batch from the current Twain scanner while you are scanning the next one. DocServer does this automatically in the background and your scanner is therefore always ready to scan a new batch.

After Scan processing without locking up your computer

You may be familiar with the “After Scanning” concept in PixEdit, where PixEdit, after the scanning process has completed, does deskew, OCR, document separation based on barcodes and so on. The scanning process does not need to be a physical scanning process, the After Scanning process may also fetch documents from a network folder updated by a network scanner or a multi function machine.

The traditional “After Scanning” process will typically take some time, depending on the complexity of the after scanning profile. While PixEdit executes your traditional profile, your PC is locked up so that you cannot scan the next batch. DocServer solves this problem in an elegant way. You can let DocServer take care of executing your Twain “After Scanning” profile and free PixEdit and the scanner so that you can scan the next batch while the previous one is processed by the Twain “After Scan” profile in background.

Modern hardware required

DocServer takes advantage of the multi processor or multi core capabilities in modern PCs. In order to get the most out of DocServer, you will need a PC with these capabilities. If your PC does not have multiple processors or cores, some tooltips will contain a warning message and DocServer will still work, but with greatly reduced performance. If you experience reduced DocServer performance, ask your IT department to check if your PC is equipped with the necessary hardware.

Multiple document sources folders

In addition, to execute the current Twain profile After Scanning in the background, DocServer can also monitor an unlimited number of folders and process incoming documents with different After Scanning profiles for each folder. DocServer is a separate window in PixEdit, and provides process status such as processed, remaining and error counters. While DocServer processes documents, you can add new folders, create new profiles as well as handle possible production errors. As documents flow through DocServer, they are shown as small thumbnails in DocServer. DocServer fully supports drag and drop technology to move documents between folders and profiles, but more about this later.

Typical basic use of DocServer

You have an expensive document scanner and you would like to use its full potential without having to wait for the After Scanning process to complete. With other words, you would like to keep the scanner busy by continuously feeding it new batches of documents and execute the After Scanning profile in background. Simply check “Process scanned document with DocServer” in ScanBar, and the DocServer window will open. Click the Start button in DocServer, and as soon as you have scanned a document or batch of documents using ScanBar, the selected After Scanning profile in ScanBar will be executed by DocServer.

Serving multiple scanners in DocServer

DocServer can serve multiple network scanners at the same time as serving the current selected Twain scanner. To let DocServer serve another Twain scanner, simply select a different Twain scanner (if connected to your PC) in ScanBar. If you would like to serve additional network folders or network scanners, click the Add button and specify the folder to be watched by DocServer. If you would like DocServer to use the current default After Scanning profile, all you have to do is to check the “Scan” checkbox. If you would like to create new, or use an existing profile, click the After Scanning Profile button belonging to the new watched folder. To add more watched folders, click the Add button again.

Note that most network scanners or multi functional devices support sending files to different folders from the same machine, depending on how the network scanner is configured. You can of course let DocServer watch several folders even if the folders are filled by the same network scanner. Using this method, you can choose “profile” on the network scanner user panel, and hence After Scanning profile in DocServer. Obviously, even if DocServer is serving different folders with different After Scanning Profiles, the profiles may still save the finished documents to the same folder using for example, different prefixes or file formats.

Drag and Drop documents to DocServer

Even if DocServer normally watches folders being filled by network scanners, you can equally, as well, fill those folders yourself using for example Windows Explorer. You may choose between dropping files directly onto any folder specification in DocServer, or drop your files into ordinary folders. This method is also essential when it comes to handle processing errors in DocServer.

For example, you are having batches of files that need different types of processing; some files need to be processed with OCR, others need to be converted to TIFF, some to CALS and so on. Create different folders on your desktop, and give them names indicating the type of process that you would like to use such as “OCR”, “Convert to TIFF” and other meaningful names. Now configure DocServer to watch the folders you just created, and apply a suitable After Scanning Profile for each folder. To process files, simply drop your files into the different folders, either directly into the folders themselves, or into DocServer. PixEdit will immediately begin processing your files in the background.

The DocServer Window

DocServer supports drag and drop. The upper part of the DocServer window contains start and stop buttons, as well as buttons for adding or removing watch folders. Note that the DocServer window runs in a separate computer thread. If your computer contains multiple processors or cores, DocServer will run without any noticeable performance reduction of PixEdit.

Starting and stopping DocServer

Click the Start or Stop button in DocServer to do this. If you quit PixEdit while DocServer is running, DocServer will start automatically the next time PixEdit is started. If PixEdit and DocServer is running unattended, and you would like the operation to resume after a power failure, make sure you put PixEdit in the startup group in Windows.

Add / Remove buttons

Use these buttons to add or remove watch folders where documents, or batches of documents, are showing up for processing. In addition to folders, DocServer also have a separate entry for the current Twain scanner with its corresponding After Scanning Profile. The current Twain scanner cannot be removed. If you only temporary would like to exclude a specific folder from processing, uncheck the “Scan” checkbox instead of removing the folder specification with the Remove button.

Specifying profiles

When you add a new watch folder, you will need to specify what DocServer shall do with the incoming documents in this folder. If you already made a profile containing these operations, just select this profile from the profile list In DocServer. You can also create or edit an existing profile by clicking the “Edit profile” entry in the profile list.

Always empty

This option will ensure that DocServer will continue to process the corresponding folder until the folder is empty before continuing to the next watch folder in DocServer. If unchecked, DocServer will process one single batch or document, and then continue to the next watch folder. If you uncheck this option for all folders, DocServer will serve every folder on a regular basis. Perhaps you would like to have DocServer prioritize your current Twain scanner, and only serve watch folders when DocServer have capacity to do so. Uncheck “Always empty” for all folders, except “Current twain scanner”

Delete source files

As DocServer processes a watched folder, each processed document will always be deleted after processing. However, a copy of the original, unprocessed document will be stored in a folder under the original folder called “Processed”. If you have checked “Delete source files”, DocServer will not keep a copy of the original document. If you choose not to delete source files, note that your hard disk sooner or later will be filled up with copies of the original documents. Note that the finished process documents will be stored in a folder according to the used profile.

Document counters

DocServer will continuously update several counters so that you can keep track of the production process. There are counters for the number processed, remaining and failed documents for each watched folder.

Animation window

A thumbnail for each processed page will always be showed in this window.

Error handling

This is an important part of DocServer. Typical errors that may happen are corrupt documents, documents with missing barcodes processed with a profile that expects barcode document separators and so on.

When DocServer for some reason fails to process a document, the corresponding red “Failed” counter will be incremented. DocServer will continue with other tasks in the mean time, but sooner or later you will need to correct the situation. To investigate the problem, click the red “Failed” counter to open the folder where the error occurred.

The procedure for error correction varies, depending on the type of error and if the error occurred in a watched folder or in the entry for current Twain scanner. Documents that fail in the profile for current twain scanning will be opened directly in PixEdit when you click the red “Failed” counter, and must be saved manually after you have corrected the problem.

If an error occurs in a watched folder, the failing documents will be stored in a folder called “Not Processed” under the watched folder. To view the content of this folder, click the red “Failed” counter. Maybe you just would like to see the error happen again – click on the red “Failed” counter and simply drag the document back to the watched folder specification in DocServer. As an alternative you can open the failed document in PixEdit, correct the problem and save it back to the original watched folder. You can of course do this while DocServer continues its processing.

Alarms in DocServer

Sometimes you may see a DocServer entry displayed with a red highlight color. This indicates that DocServer is temporary or permanently inhibited from processing any documents in the specified watch folder. A red entry line can also indicate that the watch folder is no longer available. DocServer will continue to work with other folders in the mean time, but it is good practice to remove deleted folders from DocServer.

You can now save your documents in a new file format called PDF/A Compact in PixEdit 7.7.0 revision.   This file format offers between five and ten times smaller files than traditional PDF’s with JPG compression without any visible reduction in document quality. Saving files in this file format is easy - just specify PDF/A Compact in File SaveAs for manual save, or in the After Scanning dialog box if you use automatic saving. Need to reduce the size of your existing documents? Simply use the Batch Wizard to convert thousands of documents every hour automatically.

Why the PDF/A initiative?

In a first step towards electronic archiving, many organizations implemented TIFF archives. TIFF guarantees reproducibility in the long-term and has an established structure. TIFF is also easy to transmit in a worldwide business environment but is not easily searchable. A movement then began towards PDF. PDF is a more attractive archiving format than TIFF for a variety of reasons: PDF stores structured objects (e.g. text, vector graphics, raster images), allowing for an efficient full-text search in an entire archive. TIFF is a raster format and must first be scanned with an OCR engine (optical character recognition) before it can be searched.

PDF files are more compact and require only a fraction of the memory space of respective TIFF files, often with a better quality. The smaller file size is especially advantageous for electronic file transfer (FTP, e-mail attachment etc.). Metadata like title, author, creation date, modification date, subject, keywords, etc. can be embedded in a PDF file. PDF files can be automatically classified based on the metadata, without requiring human intervention.

1. PDF/A is a stable derivative of the PDF format, internationally accepted as a Standard for long-term electronic archiving. PDF/A-1a ensures the preservation of a document’s logical structure and content text stream in natural reading order.
2. PDF/A is expected to establish itself as the new electronic archiving standard. PDF is prevalent in public and private sectors worldwide and is already an accepted archiving format in countless markets. The PDF/A Standard will help ensure that users get the guarantee of long-term reproducibility.
3. The PDF/A Standard will help ensure the long-term preservation of the electronic files. Microsoft now supports the direct generation of PDF/A from their new Office products. The signal is loud and clear. PDF/A, internationally accepted, is here to stay.

View scanned documents in any web browser without plug-in

Using File, Export to WEB in PixEdit, you can convert and publish any supported document type to a web server. Both single page and multi page documents may be exported. The result is searchable and viewable in all types of web browsers without any need for plug-ins or view software. Since PixEdit is exporting your documents using plain HTML code, no special action is required by the reader to view the exported documents.

The Team at TechSoft USA