Question : Scanned Document Storage and TIF file conversion

I have a rather complex question, but I can break it down into several parts, some of which I can work out, others I would welcome any input.

BACKGROUND
I have been using a program called FileFinder for many years. This allows me to scan in personal documents, credit card statements, bank details etc. and store the images in a normal tree structure. This works very well, it is easy to use, easy to add new documents and saves me time looking for documents.

FileFinder uses a simple Access Database (Holding just a Folder table and a Document table).

I can't give a URL because I think the company that produced FileFinder has gone out of business.


I have been looking for a Personal Information Manager application. I am particularly impressed by TreePad, http://www.treepad.com which would enable me to keep all my personal information to hand and organised in the same way as I can organise my scanned documents. However TreePad does not seem to support TIF files or provide a document scanner.

Unfortunately I can't find an application that would combine the two requirements. I could then organise my scanned in documents, add additional notes, cross reference them etc all in the one application.

OPTIONS
These are my options in my preferred order.

1) Is there an application that combines treepad and FileFinder in one easy to use application (preferably low cost)?

2) Since TreePad can accept several graphics formats (gif, jpg, bmp, png, emf, wmf) is there a simple application that I can use to scan from a twain source to one of these formats (in as few steps as possible otherwise scanning in documents becomes a chore) which can then be attached to TreePad?

3) Is there a command line or API that can be used to convert TIF to other data formats. I have located the Perl module Imager::Files from which I think I could cobble together a suitable application.

Answer : Scanned Document Storage and TIF file conversion

I suspect there isn't a good answer to #1.

As for #2, I have a  suggestion: Instead of inserting your TIFFs as files, why not simply copy and paste them into the document? This bypasses the limitation of TreePad being unable to import TIFFs.

For dealing with the existing collection of TIFF images, get a copy of IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com
Browse to a folder containing images you want to work with. When the first image appears, hit CTRL-C to copy the entire image to your clipboard. Then switch to TreePad, and hit CTRL-P to paste the image into your file. Switch back to IrfanView, tap a key to jump to the next image, hit CTRL-C again, and repeat the process until you're done.  

You can also use IrfanView to acquire your images from the scanner. To make things even simpler, some scanner utilities allow you to scan directly to the clipboard. If yours does, you could simply do a scan, then paste into your TreePad document, bypassing saving to an image entirely.


As an aside, you might want to take a look at the program Keynote. http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html
It's a freeware program similar to TreePad. It doesn't have all of TreePad's functions, but it does have a couple of things TreePad doesn't have that you may find useful.

First, it allows you to embed OLE objects directly in your document. So you could insert all sorts of things into your documents, including PDFs, Photoshop files, or whatever.
Second, it has is a freely available plugin API, so you can create your own custom plugin to do what you want (if you're sufficiently motivated.)

For question 3, converting and batch processing images, lherrou's suggestion is very good. If you prefer a GUI interface, IrfanView can also do this as well.