Alchemy Scan is an extension for the Alchemy Administrator or Index Station clients. It is the easiest way to convert paper-based documents into a secure electronic repository that is also immediately accessible and searchable.

When installed, Alchemy Scan is completely integrated within the Alchemy client program. It captures paper documents directly into repository folders, using a wide selection of popular scanners and advanced optical character recognition (OCR) to create searchable text.

You can index the scanned images using one of several methods: data entry, batch profiling, OCR zoning, OCR full-page, OCR drag and drop, or barcodes. Scan's unique drag and drop OCR feature populates a profile field with words dragged right from the image. Scan also reads barcodes and stores the information in profile fields in the repository.

Scan is versatile and scaleable. It can be used in smaller environments where one scanner is connected to the system and relatively low volumes of information are maintained. It works equally well in larger environments where an Alchemy Server is implemented and multiple Scan stations are present. Scan supports batch scanning and batch OCR indexing.

Here's how Scan works. First, you scan documents into an Alchemy folder. Then you create searchable full-text or key fields using the OCR or barcode feature. You can also key in data using profile cards. You can then edit the scanned images - rotate, flip, invert, cut, clear - or add annotations.

The number of pages a Scan station can process in a day is dependent on several factors: the scanner speed and automation features, the document size, simplex or duplex, resolution, black and white or colour and OCR indexing.

New features in Scan 8.0

• New Scan Interface: a completely re-designed user interface designed to maximize scan productivity by providing a simple-to-use, yet powerful and comprehensive set of controls.
• Scan-to-PDF: includes the ability to capture paper documents as PDF. Options are image-only PDF or Image + Text PDFs that are fully searchable. Allows several different views such as image only, text only, or combined view, so that search hit highlights appear on the image document itself.
• Scanner Profiles: create multiple scanner profiles to support a wide variety of capture needs. Whether it’s a dozen scanners each with their own settings or a single scanner with a dozen settings for specific forms capture needs, Alchemy Scan 8.0 does it.
• Document Type Profiles: create pre-defined document profiles that include scanner profiles, OCR templates, routing directions to place documents in a specific repository location and more.
• Improved OCR: includes a sophisticated data extraction capability that uses three different OCR engines and accuracy voting algorithms to insure that the data is accurate the first time.

Fully integrated within the Alchemy client.
Unlike other content and document imaging applications where the scan and repository management applications are separate, Alchemy Scan runs within the Alchemy Administrator or Index Station client. This gives the operator full access to existing database properties and profile fields, and to all the content management functionality within that Alchemy client.

Manage diverse document types.
Makes it easy to manage scanning applications where different document types are involved. For example, you can scan an invoice using zone OCR to extract the customer name and account number, then scan a contract using OCR full text, and finally scan some related photos. You can preset each document type, then simply click to select it before scanning that type. Or you can fully automate this by inserting the document type separator page into the batch.

Scan directly to a repository folder.
This is a very popular, timesaving feature of Alchemy Scan. Because Scan is so tightly coupled to the repository, new scanned documents and images are immediately available to other users for search and review. Even on the Internet through Alchemy Web.