paper{s}pace documentation

This is the documentation for the current release of paper{s}pace. The documentation for version 2 can be found here

Features

works with your existing files

paper{s}pace does indeed work with your existing file structure. You only need to point it to your documents folder and paper{s}pace will do its job. It doesn't matter in which subfolder the file exists, as long as it is supported it will be indexed and searchable in a couple of seconds.

fulltext searching your files

After paper{s}pace has found your files, it will recognize the available text, and you can search for the content through it's full text search. Combine this with your tags, and you will never miss an important document again.

tagging your pdf's

Adding tags to your files is as easy as entering a name. paper{s}pace will manage all tags on its own. No need for a complicated tag management.

reminds you of upcoming tasks

With the ability to have a special type of document, called a task. paper{s}pace will remind you per email one day in advance that you have to take action.

simple edit functionality

currently only supported on pdf's

A simple way to resort, rotate or delete pages.

supported file formats

• pdf
• images (pdf/png)

Usage

Most of the functionality paper{s}pace provides should be pretty self-explanatory. I will only explain some features.

Search

The search field in the top right corner provides your main entry point in finding your documents. You can search by a simple string like invoice and this will deliver you all documents which contain the word invoice in either the document text, the description or the title. If you tagged your documents you can narrow the results down by clicking on one or multiple of the tags in the left area.

You can prefix a word with + or -. This will include or exclude results with the given search term. For example searching for invoice +2020 will return every document which contains the words invoice AND 2020. Searching for invoice -2020 will return every document which contains the word invoice BUT NOT 2020

Installation

Attention: There is no upgrade path from version 1 of paper{s}pace. Please uninstall all previous installations.

There are two ways of installing or using paper{s}pace. You can install it on a server by hand or use docker for an easy way of installing paper{s}pace. Only docker is officially supported.

Docker

The easiest installation method is checking out or downloading one of the samples in examples and start the application with docker-compose.

There are two files:

complete-with-ftp.yml

Includes the whole application and an additional ftp server which you can point your document scanner to and then upload documents directly into paper{s}pace

minimal-docker-compose.yml

Includes only the application

First decide which one you want. Copy it to your hard drive and rename it to docker-compose.yml Then configure the properties you need and want in the environment block.

OCR_LANGUAGE: '<IN WHICH LANGUAGE ARE YOUR DOCUMENTS FOR EXAMPLE deu? [string]>'
APPLICATION_HOST: 'REPLACE WITH HOSTNAME OR IP' #what is the domain for paper{s}pace. Defaults to http://localhost:8080
ENABLE_MAIL:  '<ENABLE MAILS? [true|false]> '
MAIL_TO_ADDRESS:  '<WHO SHOULD RECEIVE MAILS [string]> '
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS:  '<THE SENDER OF THE MAILS [string]> '
MAIL_ATTACH_DOCUMENTS:  '<SHOULD WE ATTACH THE DOCUMENTS TO THE MAIL? [true|false]> '
MAILING_HOST:  '<YOUR MAIL HOST THE APPLICATION SHOULD CONNECT TO. [string]> '
MAILING_PORT:  '<THE PORT FOR YOUR MAIL HOST [integer]> '
MAILING_PROTOCOL:  '<WHICH MAIL PROTOCOLL SHOULD WE USE [smtp|pop3]> '
MAILING_SMTP_AUTH:  '<SHOULD WE AUTHENTICATE? [true|false]> '
MAILING_SMTP_USE_STARTTLS:  '<SHOULD WE USE STARTSL? [true|false]> '
MAILING_USERNAME:  '<WHICH USER SHOULD CONNECT TO YOUR MAIL PROVIDER? [string]> '
MAILING_PASSWORD:  '<THE PASSWORD OF THE MAIL USER [true|false]> '
OCR_LANGUAGE:  '<IN WHICH LANGUAGE ARE YOUR DOCUMENTS FOR EXAMPLE deu? [string]> '

When you don't want paper{s}pace to send out emails at all, remove everything which starts with MAIL_ and MAILING_ and either set ENABLE_MAIL: 'false' or remove that key.

If you have chosen complete-with-ftp.yml you also have to set the environment variable PASV_ADDRESS to the ip address or hostname the ftp is available. For example PASV_ADDRESS:192.168.1.111 and probably change the password in VSFTPD_USER_1: 'scanner:password:9876:'. if you want to change also the username of the ftp user, please also change the mount point under volumes. For a complete list of configuration options please go to wildscamp/vsftpd.

After you have made the changes to the configuration you can start paper{s}pace with docker compose. Simply open a terminal, navigate to the folder your docker-compose.yml resides and execute

docker-compose up -d

This will start paper{s}pace locally and you can open it by navigating your browser to http://localhost:8080

using existing documents

In the sample configurations we work with a named volume. If you already have a folder with your documents you want to use, you have to mount this into the container. paper{s}pace expects the following folders to be writeable for the user with the uid 9876.

/storage/tasks #default location for task documents
/storage/documents #default location for documents
/storage/binary #storage location for preview images of documents
/storage/database #location of the database file

To work with your existing folders you have to change the volumes section in the docker-compose.yml under the service api and if you have chosen the compose file with the ftp server you also have to change the mount point at the service ftp

Let's assume your current documents resides under /home/paperspace/documents/ and your tasks will be stored under /home/paperspace/tasks/ Then you have to change the section volumes in your docker-compose.yml like this

version: "3.4"
services:
  api:
  ...
    volumes:
      - paperspace:/storage
      - /home/paperspace/tasks/:/storage/tasks
      - /home/paperspace/documents:/storage/documents
  ...
  ftp:
    ...
    volumes:
      -  /home/paperspace:/home/virtual/scanner/data