John Dorst, Review: Copernic Desktop Search
TechnoLawyer member Benjamin Martin asks:
"Many times, some of our lawyers will come across a name, place or event knowing they researched it once before. However, they can't jog their memory to recall exactly which case it was a part.
"This is where a nice program that can search their folder on the server by keyword. Unfortunately, I can't find a program that suits my needs, however, I may just not be looking in the right place.
"This search program must be able to search within file formats as.txt,.doc, .wpd, .html and .pdf. The hard part, I feel, is the fact that many of our pdf files that are scanned are simply image files that have not been OCR'd to editable text. I know it's still possible to search those types of pdf files, though.
"Can anyone recommend a program that already does this or a direction I can possibly go? I've already gotten a quote from a coder in Russia for $3,000 and well, that's way over our price limit on this.
"Any help would be appreciated."
There are several good search programs, Google probably being the most recognizable one. We've taken up Copernicus Desktop Search by Copernic Technologies, Inc. and we love it. It is one of those tools that you can't take away from our attorneys now that they have it. Those familiar with the Mac and the heralded Spotlight in OS X 10.4 (Tiger), this is a similar program, though probably more limited in the number of types of files it can index. The version we're using indexes Word, Excel, WordPerfect, pdf, txt, html, Outlook and PowerPoint files (plus many other types) including the text within each document, though a newer version may cover more file types. One advantage over Spotlight is that it will also index networked drives should you choose. By default it excludes directories such as cache and cookies. Give it a look.
John Dorst
Business Manager
Serving The People Who Build America
HERRIG, VOGT & STOLL, LLP
Granite Bay, CA
www.hvslaw.com
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