I wish there was some way to combine paperless ngx with Google docs-like things somehow. Being able to combine living documents and scanned versions would be very helpful. I currently just scan things and upload them to Google Drive as a way to centralize everything.
I suppose I could convert "finished" Google docs to PDF and save them in paperless, but it just seems like these systems will always be disconnected in some way.
I would pay for a foss paperless ngx fork with support for running in a readonly filesystem of arbitrary file structure, and giving me full text search with ocr for images, pdfs, and ideally descriptions of video files
I've deployed it for my parents but in the end it's too mechanical in entering metadata, guessing rules works of course, but only for "regular stuff" and queries are not that extraordinary, for me personally I've "solved" using org-attach meaning I use org-mode notes as metadata-rich bookmarks, fully searchable for my files and eventually rga if it's really needed (at the size of my docs it's fast enough and much simple than Recoll/solr), but for non-emacs-er I still have to find a flexible enough storage solution...
I've even experimenting a generic usage of Zotero, does not work much, ideally these days we need to manage files NOT in a hierarchy but in a graph, automatically managed, annotating files with links in notes, being able to search titles, links, notes all together.
Zim with attachments for non-teaches it's still limited, too tied to the underlying file system, Zotero and Paperless are way too mechanic and Paperless do not allow note, a separate Dokuwiki with links to Paperless stored docs it's simply way too much overhead...
Long story short it's remarkable the automatic OCR (ocrmypdf), auto-classification, metadata automation etc but it's still not "the universal solution" IMO...
OIDC _can_ have group memberships if the provider/client support it via claims.
LDAP is a pain because you have to expose/support a lot of knobs for integration (bind vs anonymous, secure vs unsecure, group format, root DNs, etc.). OIDC is (in theory) a lot simpler for the most part as the bare minimum is discovery URL, client ID, and client secret.
Nice, thank you. Ive been busy adding OIDC client support to a household management app (https://homechart.app) and I'm now adding support for making it an OIDC provider too. In theory, you'd already have accounts for all of your household members (ideally with TOTP or WebAuthn), so it should be a good identity provider.
I've been avoiding LDAP like the plague. I think MS is moving away from self-hosted AD, and LDAP really loses its luster for most folks when the self hosted options are something like OpenLDAP.
After scanning a document, how is it different than any other document I have as a file (other than it being not-very-editable)? i.e. is this a general-purpose document management system, or - what?
> The easiest way to deploy paperless is docker compose
Not a general purpose one really, but it is a document management system. It's aimed at incoming mail. You get automatic OCR and learned classification / tagging / date finding.
And "docker compose up" is the easiest way to deploy things these days in general. That's got nothing to do with this software specifically.
> After scanning a document, how is it different than any other document I have as a file (other than it being not-very-editable)?
You don't want to use paperless-ngx for editable stuff really. You want to use it for stuff like bills, invoices, and business records.
Once it's in paperless, it's searchable and you don't have to worry about where it is. As long as the scan is good it will grab the OCR and then you can search for things like account number. My uncle basically scans everything bill related into his instance and then shreds the paper.
You can also tag documents and search by tag. Also since it's a web app if you can do the self-hosted thing it works well on the phone.
I have my printer set to scan and save the files to a NFS. Paperless-NGX picks it from there, does OCR and saves it. I guess I could just leave it on the NFS, but I do like the UI of P-NGX.
I have dedicated scanners at my 2 business locations with shortcuts to SFTP scans onto the server. paperless-ngx monitors the folder and automatically ingests the document. literally just two button presses and any document is digitized, tagged, OCRd, and archived within about a minute. I have the scanners set the file name based on their location so I can tell at a glance where something came from in the paperless inbox view.
Take a look at full-duplex multifunctional printers, many times they are cheaper than standalone scanners. Just as an example, a black and white laser like the Brother MFC-L2820DW should last you a long time.
Well, at least it'd be "good enough" to get your feet wet, so to speak - and also give you the ability to test if you're going to stick to it.
I got a Brother ADS-4300N to use with p-ngx, works very well and also is way faster than the usual document scanners on MF printers (duplex is done in one pass, for example)...
Among other things, it usually means that the file type has wide interoperability (which makes it more likely you can open it in the far future) and comes in a format resistant to damage, so if bits are changed or removed, you can still recover the rest of the document (usually this means avoiding compressed formats). As to how well-suited PDF/A is for these aspects, I'm not experienced enough to say.
I suppose I could convert "finished" Google docs to PDF and save them in paperless, but it just seems like these systems will always be disconnected in some way.