Help..how do i convert .max to pdf's

My converted .pdf documents open as blank pages after converting them in Graphic Converter from .max format.

What you have a bitmaps in an unconventional format and you want to convert from the unconventional format to a conventional format.

Your problem is that your conversion utility does not support the conventional format you want. The answer to this is to use an alternative conventional format as intermediate.

Your OCR software generated .max and probably could have generated tiff as alternative. Why don't you either revisit your OCR software and use that to open as max and save as tiff or use a conversion utility to do same. Then open tiff in Apple Preview to convert from tiff to pdf. What can or cannot be done on Microsoft Windows is probably better asked on a Microsoft Windows list.

/hh

My reading of the PaperPort site was that it also creates pdfs, why not use those?

Or use the Windows PaperPort viewer, also free, to do the conversion.

Batch conversion through GraphicConverter would be much faster for the thousands of documents I have. However, I have learned I can use Paperport to batch print to Acrobat Distiller and get the .pdf files I need. Slower than GraphicConverter, but it solves the problem. Even Thorsten at GraphicConverter could not figure out why my .max files were not converting. Maybe a problem unique to Paperport v. 8.0.

Thorsten is a nice bloke and responds quickly to questions. But never in my experience with answers. 😉

We have used Paperport for years for storing patient records and I was never thrilled to be doing so in a proprietary file format. As soon as a version of Paperport was released with PDF support, we began saving in that format. I think I have a similar problem to yours, I still have over 50,000 files stored in the .max format. The only convert method I'm aware of is manually opening a .max file, then manually saving it to another format. I guessing about a year full-time might accomplish the task using that method, but I'd go insane long before the year was up.

These files are also located on a machine running Windows XP Pro SP3. I can easily create a list of the .max files to be changed. I could easily put somthing together to scan the list and output 1000's of commands to Windows to convert each file, i.e.: "MAX2PDF.exe Patient 100347records.max Patient 100347records.pdf". My truoble is I haven't found a MAX2PDF.exe program, or command-line utility, or API, or COM+ module, or .dll that can be used to convert a .max file.

Were you successful in your mass-conversion? Could you provide details as to how you accomplished it?

Thank you very much,
Paul Williams
Lincoln, Nebraska

I am also looking for a way to read a *.max file.

The Nuance Paperport viewer ( http://www.nuance.com/paperport/viewers/) does not work with current OSX versions.

Did anyone find a good solution?

There is very basic software for Linux to do this kind of conversion. I haven't tried it, but just found it today after a lot of Google searching. It is called maxview, and it does command-line conversions, as well as graphical browsing of directories.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxview/

Paul - I have used Paperport since version 3 or so. The current version 11 is much faster than previous versions and Paperport now uses PDF as default setting (it has for a number of years). I have converted about 13 GB worth of .max files into PDF files using the following process.

The process is very simple using Paperport 11 and quite fast. Make sure the folders your .max files are in are part of the Paperport directory tree on the left of the desktop (you still have a Windows XP machine), go to each individual folder, highlight the files you wish to convert, option click (right click) on any of the highlighted items, left click on the menu item "Duplicate as PDF File". This process will produce a PDF copy of the file and leave the original intact. Do not highlight too many .max files at the same time, especially if they have a huge file size, as you may run out of memory and the application may crash, but I have done it with hundred "+" at one time. After the duplication process has completed, sort the desktop using the Paperport "Arrange by File Type" command and then move the PDF files to a new location. I suggest you keep the .max files for backup. The amount of RAM in your Windows machine and the processor speed play a huge role in how smooth the process works. I'd be hesitant to use one of the older Paperport versions.

I have yet to locate a MAC program that duplicates the functionality that Paperport has in combining PDF files. I did buy a Fuijitsu ScanSnap 510M which comes with Adobe Acrobat software. I love the scanner. It makes short work of files and scans double-sided. The software allows the combination of files. It is not as simple as with Paperport, but easily feasible.

I WISH NUANCE WOULD MAKE A MAC VERSION.

Greetings from the Left Coast -

Manfred