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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Archive your receipts and account info with PDFs

Mac OSX bases much of its interface on Adobe’s PDF format and opportunities to use and make PDF files are ubiquitous.

My favorite PDF trick helps me create an archived digital receipt every time I make a purchase online.

  1. Create a folder in “~/Documents/” called “Receipts”
  2. When you reach a page that presents a receipt, account information, or other stuff you want to capture for future reference, Select “File > Print…”
  3. Click the “Save as PDF…” button
  4. In the dialog box, surf to the “Receipts” folder you made earlier
  5. Name the file something meaningful to you
  6. Click “Save”

You now have a single location for all your receipts and account info . If you’re really cool, you might want to create sub-directories for each type of item (“Receipts,” “Accounts,” “MySQL Setups,” “Affiliate Reports,” etc.

Fazal Majid's picture

I scan all my paper...

I scan all my paper documents to PDF using a Canon DR-2080C batch document scanner (Windows-only, unfortunately). It can batch scan 20 pages per minute, duplex (both sides) if needed. And I keep PDFs of vital documents like passport, invoices of items I carry with me for customs, and so on on a USB flash memory stick in my wallet.

 
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