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PaperPort 14 in Windows 10 - A First Look

Joe WinogradDeveloper
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PaperPort is among the most important applications that I run on my Windows computers. I use it every day, for nearly all of my document and photo scanning, as well as most of my document and photo imaging, including OCR via its built-in OmniPage capabilities.

Disclaimer before going further: I have no affiliation with Nuance and no financial interest in it whatsoever. I am simply a happy user/customer.

Article Update on 18-Apr-2020: Last year, Kofax acquired the Document Imaging Division of Nuance, which included PaperPort. I discuss this in an EE article and video:

Free in-place upgrade of Nuance PaperPort Professional 14.5 to Kofax PaperPort Professional 14.7
Free upgrade of Nuance PaperPort Professional 14.5 to Kofax PaperPort Professional 14.7

I've been using PaperPort for around 20 years on every version of Windows since Windows 95. With the Windows 10 release date coming up in two days, I thought it would be worthwhile to document my experience with PaperPort on the Windows 10 Technical Preview, including some tips for successful deployment on W10.

First, my experience with the various builds along the way: I did not install PaperPort on the initial Windows 10 Technical Preview of Build 9841, released on 30-Sep-2014. But I installed on every build after that, from 9860 through the current 10240. The platform is physical hardware, not a virtual machine. It is a relatively old laptop with mediocre specs by today's standards:

Intel Core2 Duo T9300 2.50GHz
4GB RAM DDR2 PC5300
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB (with the read performance firmware upgrade)
Intel GMA X3100 Video Memory 256MB
Screen resolution 1280x800

After updating from Build 9841 to Build 9860, I installed the Windows 8.1/64-bit scanning and printing drivers for the Brother MFC-9840CDW and the W8.1/64-bit scanning drivers for the Kodak ScanMate i920. Both installs went fine.

Tip #1
Install the latest scanning drivers (ISIS, TWAIN, WIA, WIA 2.0) from your scanner manufacturer's website, preferably Windows 8.1 drivers until they have W10 drivers, making sure you use the right bit level for the version of W10 that you plan to install, i.e., 32-bit or 64-bit.

I then installed PaperPort 14.5 Professional, as described in this Experts Exchange article:
PaperPort 14 - Free Upgrade to Version 14.5

Tip #2
Run only PP14.5 on Windows 10. It's possible that earlier versions will work, but my advice is not to run any version of PP before 14.5. That said, if any readers try earlier versions of PP14, or even earlier major releases, such as PaperPort 11 and PaperPort 12, please post your results here (yes, Nuance was superstitious and skipped 13).

On all of the builds except one, PP14.5 installed and worked well. The one problematic build was 9926. PP14.5 would not even install on that build. Fortunately, Microsoft fixed the problem in the next build (10041) and it has been fine ever since. If you were unlucky enough to try PaperPort on Build 9926 and gave up on it, don't worry — it works fine on the latest Build 10240, which is the basis of the upcoming official release.

Everything I've tried has worked, including scanning from both a network-connected, all-in-one/multi-function device and a USB-connected scanner. I tested simplex, duplex, ISIS, TWAIN, WIA, WIA2, JPG, PDF Image, and PDF Searchable Image, although not in all combinations. Even the Duplex ADF option came up in the scanning profiles without having to use the Hint Editor.

However, after the first few builds, they started killing the scanning drivers, which I had to reinstall. It became so prevalent, that I made it a part of my standard operating procedure for a new build.

Tip #3
Keep all of your scanning drivers handy — reinstall all of them on Windows 10.

Furthermore, I recommend installing the free PP14 Scanner Connection Tool. Although Nuance pitches this as a fix specifically for Windows 8, users have reported that it fixes scanning problems in earlier versions of Windows, so I decided to try it in Windows 10, and I've had no problems scanning with it.

Tip #4
Install the PaperPort 14 Scanner Connection Tool, as described in Section VIII of the EE article, PaperPort 14 - Free Upgrade to Version 14.5.

PaperPort picked up on the Office 2010 Professional installation, creating Send To Bar icons for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word. I tested the Excel and Word ones — both worked perfectly. Indeed, the Send To Bar contains all icons that it should have:

W10-PP14-Send-To-Bar.jpg
PaperPort also picked up on all of my ISIS, TWAIN, WIA, and WIA 2.0 drivers, as shown in this Select Scanner dialog:


W10-PP14-scanning-drivers.jpg
Other successful tests were scanning into a network share and retrieving the scanned files from my production Windows 7 system, printing to the PaperPort Image Printer, doing a Save As to a PDF Searchable Image file, duplicating items, stacking/unstacking items, running FormTyper via drag-and-drop on the Send To Bar (which invoked PDF Viewer Plus), doing copy/paste to the desktop, and many other operations.

In summary, three quarters of a year of testing has given me confidence that PaperPort will work well on Windows 10. If any readers would like me to test a specific piece of PaperPort functionality in Windows 10, post a comment here — I'll be happy to do it.

Article Update: Nuance has issued a statement with respect to product support for Windows 10:
http://nuance.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17901/kw/windows%2010

Note in this Knowledge Base article that it says, "PaperPort 14.5 with Patch 1" is "Windows 10-compliant".

Tip #5
Install Patch 1 for PP14.5, as described in the EE article, How to install the Patch 1 update for PaperPort 14.5.

If you find this article to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up icon below. This lets me know what is valuable for EE members and provides direction for future articles. Thanks very much! Regards, Joe
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Joe WinogradDeveloper
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50+ years in computers
EE FELLOW 2017 — first ever recipient of Fellow award
MVE 2015,2016,2018
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DISTINGUISHED EXPERT

Comments (20)

Joe WinogradDeveloper
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Commented:
Hi Andrea,

A quick note to let you know that I included your idea in my latest Experts Exchange article:
What to do when PaperPort crashes, hangs, or fails to start

As you can see, I sent kudos your way in the article, and want to do it here, too — Thank You!

Regards, Joe
Andrea CarliIT technical operator

Commented:
Hi Joe, I noticed that even Nuance support now know the fix since one of my customer experience the problem last friday and call the Nuance technical support of Italy, they provide him the solution I found!

Today one other customer call me reporting the same problem, seems it's becoming a global problem!

I read your article and have just to point that there is not due to Firefox 61.0 update since when it happen to me I was using 59.xx or 60.xx (don't remember), furthermore I think (I don't remember well) I did a test even without having Firefox installed, but I can not confirm it.

From this fact I must note that Nuance no longer develops the Paperport software, because in this case it could have released an update of the program, but now it is 5 years that it does not.

I have not seen on the market programs that have the functions of editing PDF files like Paperport, and it is a pity that this technology is thrown away this way!
Joe WinogradDeveloper
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Commented:
Hi Andrea,

> I noticed that even Nuance support now know the fix since one of my customer experience the problem last friday and call the Nuance technical support of Italy, they provide him the solution I found!

Very interesting! I don't have any reports from here in the U.S. (or, for that matter, anywhere else) that Nuance is even aware of the problem, let alone the fix.

> seems it's becoming a global problem!

Yes, I think it's going to be an epidemic!

> when it happen to me I was using 59.xx or 60.xx (don't remember)

That's the first report of anything other than 61.0 that I've heard — fascinating!

> I think (I don't remember well) I did a test even without having Firefox installed, but I can not confirm it.

I didn't get that result here. I just ran the following test on W10 Pro 64-bit, Version 1803, build 17704.1000, 28-Jun-2018:

• Firefox NOT installed
• BrowserSelected contains Microsoft Internet Explorer
• PP14.5 Pro Patch1 works
• Changed BrowserSelected manually to Mozilla Firefox
• PP14.5 Pro Patch1 works
• Installed Firefox 61.0 64-bit
• BrowserSelected stayed Mozilla Firefox
PP14.5 Pro Patch1 fails — splash screen, then nothing
• Changed BrowserSelected manually to xxx
• PP14.5 Pro Patch1 works

> From this fact I must note that Nuance no longer develops the Paperport software, because in this case it could have released an update of the program, but now it is 5 years that it does not.

Yes, many folks are reaching that conclusion, especially with the recent release of Power PDF V3, which came relatively quickly on the heels of V2.0 and V2.1, which themselves came relatively quickly after V1.0, V1.1, and V1.2. In summary, there have been three major releases and three minor (single decimal point) releases of Power PDF in the past four years, as well as at least three hotfixes that I'm aware of (14357.100, 14508.100, 16115.2100). During that same time, there have been zero...yes, zero...PaperPort releases! No majors, no minors! PP14.5 was released in Q1 of 2013 and, more than five years later, that's where we still are. The only enhancements during the past 5+ years are the PP14 Scanner Connection Tool (Q4 of 2014) and Patch 1 (Q2 of 2015). In fact, we're still in a position where Microsoft Office 2016, released on 22-Sep-2015 — almost three years ago! — is not supported by any version of PaperPort. Totally absurd! Btw, I've been trying to get an "official" statement from Nuance on PaperPort 15 for almost four years (many requests since Q4 of 2014) — no dice!

> I have not seen on the market programs that have the functions of editing PDF files like Paperport, and it is a pity that this technology is thrown away this way!

I'm total agreement! It's a real shame. :(  Regards, Joe
Marco PolsAssistant Chief Finance

Commented:
@Andrea Great thanks for the register solution of PaperPort. Already contacted support, but so far no answer. But after three days searching solved the problem. Yeah I'm happy

I have version 14.5   (14.5.15168.1450)
BUILDID PP-1313-011-15264.1154

Windows 10 Pro version 1709

Used the downloads from this topic include the patch. After install changed the register.  The button "get latest updates" don't work. I use Firefox as well Chrome (standard browser)

And as you mentioned the best buy I ever did to manage my PDF files as well.
Joe WinogradDeveloper
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Commented:
Hi Marco,
Thanks for joining Experts Exchange today and reading my article — Welcome Aboard! As my PP14.5/Patch1 article shows, your BUILDID of PP-1313-011-15264.1154 means that it is PaperPort 14.5 Standard (retail) with Patch1 installed — good news!

> The button "get latest updates" don't work.

Yes, that's the main reason that I wrote the Patch1 article, i.e., because the Common Software Update Manager often does not work. I'm glad that the direct download of Patch1 did work for you. Regards, Joe

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