Using Search to Manage Documents:
Brian Sabin, July 2007
Laserfiche's Search capability can be used to easily manage even very large and complicated repositories. Because most of the features that are available from the folder browser are also available from the search pane, you can use searches to apply changes to a selected subset of your documents all at once. In a sense, the search pane allows you to do targeted batch processing.
Additionally, you can save a search process and load it later. For instance, if you regularly wanted to OCR all documents that fit a certain specification, you could set the search parameters and then select the Save icon at the top of the Search pane. Input the desired search name. You will later be able to call up the search parameters by clicking on the Load icon at the top of the Search pane and selecting the search you want to run.
Here are a few of the many ways that you can use this powerful function:
Manage Electronic Documents
Many customers like to use Laserfiche's Extract Text function to make their electronic documents searchable. Those with Snapshot installed may also want to Snapshot the documents, which will create an image of the document for further processing. You can use the Electronic Documents search from the Customize Search box to find all electronic documents, or you can specify a type of electronic document by extension. (For instance, to locate all .doc files, select Search for the following extensions and select doc.) By selecting some or all of the documents and choosing OCR/Extract Text/Index or Snapshot from the Action menu, you can process some or all of your electronic documents at once.
Find and OCR All Non-OCRed Documents
You can use the Has Pages search from the Customize Search box to locate all documents that have pages which have not been OCRed, or which have been only partially OCRed. You can then select all or some of the documents and choose OCR/Extract Text/Index to OCR and index them. This is a good way to keep your repository up to date for more effective text searching.
Export a File List
You can export a list of documents as a text file from the Search pane. For instance, if you wanted to generate a list of all of Shakespeare's tragedies, you could set up a Field search with Shakespeare in the Author field and Tragedy in the Genre field. This would bring up all of the documents that fit those criteria. You could sort the documents to your liking using the information fields (for instance, you could put them in alphabetical order by name). Then, you could navigate to the File menu and select Export and then List Contents. This will allow you to export a comma-separated list of all the selected files. A comma-separated file list can be imported into any spreadsheet program for whatever purpose you might want.
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Monday, September 08, 2008 
