Thank you again everyone who has been helping me. I wasn't aware of this machine, and it is very interesting. That may be a potential solution.
The barcode idea is one that I have considered but it isn't very practical for us. The reason I say that is that we have hundreds of customers and new ones are added daily. Usually you'd only have one or two documents that need to scanned, so it would not be practical if someone had to stop and make barcodes and then stick them on a document (we don't generate all of the documents here so we can't just put barcodes on the documents when they are created--some of the documents in question would be invoices from suppliers for materials and things like that...). My other possible solution besides using Barcodes or OCR is to get a copier/scanner machine that will send emails as described before. But what I picture is that the machine would already know the domain where the email is going to ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) so the sales guy would walk up to the machine and type in the unique 5 digit id for the customer as the email address. Then press send. (The copy machines I have seen don't have good ways of typing in much beyond just numbers, so if they had to type in the domain name too for the email address, that would be a deal breaker--nobody would do it.) I'd have to find the right copy machine to do that. I think the Sharp AR-M277 would possibly do that, but I have to put my hands on one to see. I would set up the email server with a catch-all email address that would accept [EMAIL PROTECTED] when [EMAIL PROTECTED] comes in, coldFusion would POP it and then use the name as the ID number and VOILA. Any more comments or ideas appreciated. -----Original Message----- From: David Livingston [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:26 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: OCR Solutions I don't know what your budget is but we have used these in several document management solutions and they seem to be pretty idiot proof. Plus you can collect data and do ocr. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/15179-15179-64195-12126-64404- 3330619.html Dave On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:32 PM, Dave Watts wrote: >> What I actually plan to do is get a copy machine/scanner combination >> with a sheet feeder that can email scanned documents. > > Then get one that automatically does OCR! Xerox has solutions that do > this. > All you have to do is put the paper in. > > Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software > http://www.figleaf.com/ > > Fig Leaf Software provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized > instruction at our training centers in Washington DC, Atlanta, > Chicago, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, or on-site at your location. > Visit http://training.figleaf.com/ for more information! > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Check out the new features and enhancements in the latest product release - download the "What's New PDF" now http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/coldfusion/cf8_beta_whatsnew_052907.pdf Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:294317 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4