ScanSoft Paperport Deluxe 7.0

Poor old Windows. It tries its best to accommodate all our needs but when it comes to organising files on a busy computer it just isn't much help. Okay, you can use Find to search for files with certain names, but if you're looking for a specific document or a graphic and can't remember what you called it, then you'll have to use Windows Explorer and open every single file until you find the right one.

PaperPort Deluxe 7.0 is designed as an all-round file manager for home or small business users. It has a really simple central interface which works like Explorer but shows all your documents, scans, photos and graphics files as small thumbnail images. This gives you a much better idea as to the contents of your hard disk. If you still can't find what you're after, then you could try the SimpleSearch feature. This indexes all the documents you have on your PC and allows you to search through the content of each one.

You can use PaperPort to view your files using the PageView feature, but there is also a useful toolbar along the bottom that you can use to open your file in a compatible application such as Microsoft Word. PageView also works with a number of other file types, even those that you don't have a corresponding program for on your PC. This is useful when it comes to opening email attachments that have been created on a PC by an application that you don't own.

PaperPort also has a number of built-in features that help you make the most of your PC and scanner. For instance, there's a basic OCR program that takes a scanned document and runs it into a fully editable text file in your word processor. This is as easy as dragging a file from PaperPort and dropping it onto the icon for your word processor in the lower toolbar. There's also an image editing program, although you might well find that the one that came with your scanner offers a wider range of features.