Scanner Sources

With a scanner connection, you can save paper documents to the vault in digital format. This lets the M-Files search capabilities to be used with scanned paper documents.

When using external sources, M-Files does not communicate directly with the scanners but uses an external connection to read the file produced by the scanner from, for instance, the scanner's network drive. The connection is configured in M-Files Admin under External File Sources.

These connections can be made, for example, with Hewlett-Packard MFP series devices by using HP Digital Sending Software (DSS). In this case, the device is connected directly to the local area network and the user scans the paper document with the device.

It is also possible to enter metadata with the device's touchscreen. The scanned file and the metadata are sent to the DSS software performing optical character recognition (OCR) for the file. The scanned image and recognized text are combined into a PDF file. The PDF file and an XML metadata file are saved in a folder controlled by M-Files through external location configuration. On detecting new files, M-Files transfers the files to the document vault as documents with metadata.

For instructions on how to use a scanner as an external source for M-Files, see Creating a New Connection to an External Source.

Note: Text recognition can also be done with the M-Files OCR module. You can also scan using a local scanner that is directly connected to your computer. For more information, see Scanning and Text Recognition (OCR).