There was a time I printed all kinds of stuff. I printed articles I found on the Internet, how-to-do things, recipes and almost anything else you can think of.
I printed my tax forms and filed them away into a bulging file cabinet, where even though stuff was filed in what I thought was a good system, I still sometimes couldn't find what I was looking for without a frustrating search.
But then I came to realize, after all the stuff was printed, I hardly ever looked at it again. I also found it hard to find an article or that how-to I needed.
So I re-evaluated what I needed to do. Set up a new file system? My file cabinet was already full and I do mean full!
Eventually I found what I needed to do. I did set up a new file system. It's on my computer. I got a program called PaperPort. It has a file system already set up and can access your scanner. So I started scanning every new thing that came by mail or email that I need to keep and filed it into PaperPort. I already get about every financial statement online and I saved them all in PDF format and filed them in PaperPort.
Medical stuff all goes into PaperPort.
I went through that really full file cabinet and scanned what needed to be kept and ran my shredder full blast.
My old printer/copier/scanner was getting a bit, shall we say, long in the tooth (old). It was big and bulky and the only place I had for it was in my bedroom closet. It still worked, but quite often it had to be re-installed to keep working. It didn't help that I had to use a print server to use it that was also getting a bit long in the tooth. If I wanted to scan more than one page into a PDF file, I had to use another utility to join the files into one file.
Then last fall I found the solution to that, I got a new wireless printer/copier/scanner, an HP Envy. (Thanks to my sister for finding it first!) It is wonderful! I can scan page after page and save all as one file. No reinstalling all the time. It's quiet and fast.
Now I will have almost every document I will ever need in digital format.) Even manuals for appliances! So easy to find.
I backup the entire file and keep a copy of the backup in the bank box. So if, heaven for bid, a disaster occurs I still have my stuff. I also have my precious photos all scanned and backed up as well.
The only down side for all this, if I had got my Envy first, I wouldn't have needed PaperPort as I could have set up a file system on my own. But since I have it, I use it.
I seldom need to print anything now. I save a lot of money by not buying printer ink and I can find stuff without digging through the old file cabinet!
Martha
