Papermerge DMS
Open-source document management system with OCR and versioning
What is Papermerge DMS? Complete Overview
Papermerge DMS is a powerful open-source document management system designed for digital archives. It allows users to store, organize, and index scanned documents in PDF, JPEG, and TIFF formats. The system features full-text search, tagging, and metadata-based search capabilities to help users instantly find relevant information. Papermerge DMS is ideal for individuals, small businesses, and enterprises looking for a user-friendly solution to manage their digital documents efficiently. With its modern web interface, OCR capabilities, and versioning system, Papermerge DMS simplifies document management while ensuring data integrity and accessibility.
Papermerge DMS Interface & Screenshots

Papermerge DMS Official screenshot of the tool interface
What Can Papermerge DMS Do? Key Features
OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Papermerge DMS performs OCR on your documents, adding searchable and selectable text, even to documents scanned with only images. It uses the open-source Tesseract engine to recognize more than 100 languages, making your documents fully searchable and editable.
Versioning
Documents in Papermerge DMS are versioned. The originally uploaded version is always retained, and any operation applied to the document creates a new version. This is particularly useful for storing multiple versions of the same document, such as updated contracts or revised invoices.
Custom Fields
Custom fields are user-defined attributes attached to documents or document categories. Examples include 'price', 'date of issue', or 'issuer' for receipts. Custom fields can also be used to assign custom IDs to documents, referencing them in external systems or indicating their physical location.
Categories
Papermerge DMS supports document categories, allowing users to organize documents by types such as 'Receipt', 'Invoice', or 'Contract'. This feature enhances document organization and retrieval, making it easier to manage large archives.
Page Management
Page management features help fix scanning process errors. Users can reorder, rotate, and extract pages within documents, ensuring that scanned documents are correctly formatted and easy to read.
User-Friendly Interface
Papermerge DMS features a beautiful, modern, and intuitive web-based user interface. The design boosts productivity and makes working with documents a pleasant experience, with an emphasis on simplicity and ease of use.
Best Papermerge DMS Use Cases & Applications
Legal Document Management
Law firms can use Papermerge DMS to store and organize contracts, court documents, and client files. The versioning feature ensures that all revisions are tracked, and the OCR capability makes scanned documents searchable.
Receipt and Invoice Archiving
Small businesses can archive receipts and invoices, using custom fields to track prices, dates, and issuers. The system's search functionality makes it easy to retrieve specific documents during audits or tax season.
Academic Research
Researchers can store and categorize academic papers, notes, and scanned books. The OCR feature allows for full-text searches within scanned documents, saving time during literature reviews.
How to Use Papermerge DMS: Step-by-Step Guide
Upload your documents in PDF, JPEG, or TIFF formats to Papermerge DMS. The system will automatically index them for easy retrieval.
Use the OCR feature to convert scanned images into searchable and selectable text. This process is automatic and supports over 100 languages.
Organize your documents by assigning them to categories and adding custom fields. This step enhances searchability and organization.
Utilize the versioning feature to keep track of document changes. Each modification creates a new version while retaining the original.
Search for documents using full-text search, tags, or metadata. The intuitive interface makes it easy to find exactly what you need.
Manage pages within documents by reordering, rotating, or extracting pages as needed to correct any scanning errors.
Papermerge DMS Pros and Cons: Honest Review
Pros
Considerations
Is Papermerge DMS Worth It? FAQ & Reviews
Yes, Papermerge DMS is open-source and free to use under the Apache 2.0 license. All source code is available on GitHub for anyone to download and use.
Papermerge DMS supports PDF, JPEG, and TIFF formats for document uploads and management.
The OCR feature uses the open-source Tesseract engine to recognize text in scanned documents. It supports over 100 languages and makes the text searchable and selectable.
Yes, the Apache 2.0 license allows for commercial use, modification, and distribution of the software.
Support is available through GitHub discussions and the project's community channels. There is no official paid support, but the community is active and helpful.