First-Rate Design On A Desktop - desktop publishing software and other software for small firms - Software Review - Evaluation

Nation's Business, June, 1999 by Tim McCollum

PaperPort Deluxe and ScannerSuite (ScanSoft Inc., 1-800-787-7007, www.scansoft.com); $49.99 and $79.99, respectively.

ScanSoft's PaperPort software is used for organizing documents imported into a PC via a scanner. The software's latest version goes beyond scanning to organize information stored on a PC no matter how it was entered.

Like Caere's PageKeeper Pro, PaperPort Deluxe provides an alternative to the Windows Explorer file-management system used by most PCs, It organizes scanned documents, e-mail messages, Web pages, and files created on the PC using word-processing, desktop-publishing, database, spreadsheet, or other applications.

The software works much like an Internet search engine such as Alta Vista or Excite. To locate a file, the user types in key words, phrases, or file names. The software then brings up a list of files that either contain the words or phrase or match the file name.

As such, PaperPort Deluxe is useful for people who create a lot of documents but can't remember where they put them. Moreover, it's still excellent for its designed purpose: managing the scanning process and organizing scanned images and documents.

PaperPort Deluxe is available as part of ScanSoft's ScannerSuite, which includes ScanSoft TextBridge Pro 98 optical character recognition software. The software converts scanned documents into computer text.

WebRecord Research Pro (Canon Software Publishing, 1-800-652-2666, www.software.canon.com); $49.95.

Canon's WebRecord software has undergone a tremendous transformation to become a valuable information tool for small firms. WebRecord was designed to help Internet users print Web documents, but the software seemed irrelevant since the documents could be printed without the aid of special software.

The new version, WebRecord Research Pro, is a true Internet research tool. It helps people search for information on the Web, organize it on their PCs, and print it.

WebRecord Research Pro has a built-in Web browser that can be used to search the Web. Users can retrieve entire Web sites for off-line viewing. More impressively, they can schedule Web searches, and the software will go online at specific times and retrieve requested Web sites. It will even update Web information, which is useful if the user is tracking specific information such as news, prices, and investment information.

As a bonus, WebRecord Research Pro comes with Researching Online for Dummies, by Reva Basch (IDG Books, $24.95), which has more than 300 pages of tips for searching the Web.