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I’m sort of an environmentalist. I find solar panels attractive, hybrid cars hot, and hydrogen-powered cars drop dead gorgeous. I feel guilty throwing away large amounts of paper or even a sheet of hardly-written paper.

That being said, I hate online receipts and confirmations. Ever experience the following scenario?

Receipts
You are buying something online with your credit card. After you press the “Place Order” button, the next page says something like “Thank you for you purchase! The following information is a receipt of this order. Please print it for your records.”

Confirmations
Or, how about this situation? You find this really great deal on a graphics card. The catch is that you need to fill out about 3 rebate forms and wait a billion years for three checks so that the card will actually cost the advertised price. But wait! All three rebates can be submitted online! This will make it faster for your rebate check to arrive in the mail. At the last page of the process, it asks you to print the page and send it to them with a copy of the receipt and the UPC bar code. Sounds reasonable … until it asks you to print a second copy for your personal records.

I don’t know about you but I don’t have the cabinet space to fit all of my printable confirmations and receipts. Besides, does anyone ever use those printed documents? Maybe some use the rebate confirmations, but I would guess that few even look the receipts later. It’s a waste of time, paper, and cabinet space. But, there are some people who would rather keep track of their receipts and documents just in case. I call these people “paper trailers.” You don’t need to print them and waste your precious ink and paper!

Alternatives
Computers manufactured after 2000 typically have at least 40GB of space. Most people do not even fill the 10GB mark. That leaves 30GB of unused space! Why not use this space to store these printable documents. There are three ways to do this.

1. Save the Page - When you see the confirmation page, click File and Save (or just press Ctrl-S). This method is a little risky. Often, saving a page via browser will omit some necessary information.
2. Print to (PostScript) File - In Microsoft Windows, there is an obscure function called “Print to File.” Generally, this option is found in any print dialog box. Basically, it takes the RAW data sent to the printer and turns it into a file. For technical people, this file is usually of PostScript format. I employed this method in the past. The only problem was that it is pretty impossible to view Windows-generated PostScript files. The only way to view them is to do a complicated, sometimes-buggy process to print. Another caveat, sometimes these Post Script files can only be printed correctly on a printer with the same make and model as the default printer used with originating computer. For all of you GNU fanatics reading this, I know about the GhostScript viewer. I’ve already tried it and it does not work.
3. The last method is what I’ll be discussing today, Print to MultiMedia File Programs.

Print to Multimedia File Programs
Print to Multimedia File Programs are neat little programs. In setup, they create a virtual printer that acts just like a normal printer; it’s just another listing in the printer folder. Basically, the these programs take the raw data from the program that wants to print and, instead of turning that into more RAW data a printer can understand, it converts it into a universal readable multimedia format such as *.BMP, *.GIF, or *.JPEG. I tried many of these programs and found that most support only one format. Additionally, the majority of them are very buggy.

PaperlessPrinter is an exception to that trend. Unlike other programs in its class, PaperlessPrinter is stable and it utilizes the following formats: *.DOC, *.XLS, *.HTML, *.PDF, *.BMP, *.GIF, or *.JPEG. It’s a wonder that rarefind, the software maker, distributes this freely! Their only limitation, which is pretty much unenforced, is “This product is FREE for noncommercial use or benefit only.”

Paperless Printer is very easy to use. Just print normally. In the print dialog box, select Paperless Printer as the printer.

Select the desired format.

Input the path where you want Paperless Printer to save the files.

This is just a hint: If you think you will use these files later to actually print them on a real printer, change the scaling to 2 and 2.

Try Paperless Printer! You’ll save space, clutter, ink, paper, and headache!

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