Nuance has added a new twist to cloud document storage with the launch of Paperport Anywhere, a service that automatically OCRs faxes and documents scanned or photographed on a Smartphone.

The system works via a browser of dedicated apps for Apple and Google mobile devices.

Nuance’s OmniPage OCR (optical character recognition) engine automatically creates searchable documents from scanned and camera-captured documents, as well as faxes, making paper content as easy to search and find as digital documents.

“There is a reason that recent surveys show over 51% of people still use paper files – it is in large part because current cloud services treat paper content as an afterthought,” said Robert Weideman, vice president and general manager for the Nuance Document Imaging Division.

“PaperPort Anywhere goes further than other services by closing the content gap between paper and digital documents – making it easy to scan to the cloud, improving the way users manage both their scanned and digital documents, and by making cloud access easy and convenient.”

PaperPort Anywhere also integrates with the new release of Nuance PaperPort 14 for Windows, the scanning and document management application for the PC. PaperPort 14 provides automatic synchronisation of Windows folders and files with PaperPort Anywhere.

It also adds conversion of scanned and PDF documents into fully formatted word and spreadsheet files that can be edited on Windows, the Macintosh and through cloud services such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365.

PaperPort 14 provides the ability to create PDF from practically any application, and includes PDF-MRC, which creates scanned files that are up to eight times smaller than scanned PDF files without compression.

PaperPort 14 expands on its One-Click scanning by adding new Scan & Open and automatic file naming and folder placement capabilities. PaperPort Scan Enhancement Tools have been expanded to automatically remove black borders and three-hole punch artifacts, and implements new auto-crop and auto de-speckling capabilities. The product also increases OCR accuracy by up to 34%.

PaperPort 14 is $US99 and PaperPort Professional 14 is $US199 for individual user

PaperPort Anywhere includes free apps for Apple iPhone, iPad and Google Android devices, and is free for up to one gigabyte of searchable storage space. PaperPort Anywhere subscription plans include $US9.99 per month for 10 gigabytes and $US24.99 per month for 50 gigabytes of storage space.

It provides thumbnail and clip views of paper and digital documents and is accessible through at www.PaperPort.com.