Workflow for scanning with OCR to Yojimbo?

[thehealthyskeptic]

I'm transitioning toward a paperless office. I have a Fujitsu
ScanSnap S1300 and Abby Fine Reader for OCR. My ideal workflow would
be:

1) Scan
2) OCR
3) Add to Yojimbo

and I'd like to find a way to automate it as much as possible. I did
find a script that automates the first two steps using a folder
action. It allows me to simply put the document in the scanner and
hit the button, and end up with an OCR'd document in a folder. All I
need is to figure out how to automate the final step, i.e.
transferring the file to Yojimbo (which should bring up the screen
that allows me to enter tags before filing the document).

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Chris

[Steve Kalkwarf]

If you want automatic, then I'd recommend another folder action script, which tells Yojimbo to open the item.

However, you mentioned adding tags, which makes step 3 a manual process.

What were you hoping to automate?

Steve

[thehealthyskeptic]

Thanks for your reply, Steve.

I realize now I was thinking of the "Add to Yojimbo" Safari
bookmarklet where, after clicking it, a window pops up asking me to
enter tags before the item is filed away. I had it in my mind that
this also happens when adding an item to Yojimbo from the finder, but
I just tried that and see that it does not. I was hoping to automate
the entire process up until the point where I am prompted to enter
tags, but the problem is there is no such point when adding items from
the finder.

So I guess the bigger question for me is whether it's possible to have
a dialog that pops up asking for tags when adding items to Yojimbo?

If it is, then as you said it's just a question of me re-writing the
folder action to move the item to Yojimbo. (Which I have no idea how
to do, but I'm hoping to figure it out or get help.)

Chris

[Steve Kalkwarf]

> I realize now I was thinking of the "Add to Yojimbo" Safari
> bookmarklet where, after clicking it, a window pops up asking me to
> enter tags before the item is filed away. I had it in my mind that
> this also happens when adding an item to Yojimbo from the finder, but
> I just tried that and see that it does not. I was hoping to automate
> the entire process up until the point where I am prompted to enter
> tags, but the problem is there is no such point when adding items from
> the finder.
>
> So I guess the bigger question for me is whether it's possible to have
> a dialog that pops up asking for tags when adding items to Yojimbo?

Not really, but depending on your exact needs, there may be another solution for you.

If you drop an item on a Tag Collection (either in the Collections list, or in the Drop Dock), the item will be tagged with those tags at creation time.

If you are using all the same tags for these items, you can tag them with AppleScript, and then the folder action is still a viable solution.

You could use the AppleScript I wrote a few years ago to add tags to the most recently imported item (using something like FastScripts to add a key shortcut to it).

How many tags are you applying? Are they used in repeatable groupings? Can you organize the scanning so you can do batches of scans sharing the same set of tags?

--
-- Deferred Tags
--
-- Invoke this script to add one or more tags to the item most recently added to Yojimbo's Library
--

tell application "Yojimbo"
set allTags to (name of every tag)
set ri to builtin smart collection named "Recent Items"
set recentItem to last item of ri
set itemName to name of recentItem
end tell

activate
set newTags to choose from list allTags with prompt "Tag “" & itemName & "” with?" with multiple selections allowed

if (count of newTags) is not 0 then
tell application "Yojimbo"
add tags newTags to recentItem
end tell
end if