Winning The Paper Chase

Tim e-mails with a suggestion for my legal matter:

Regarding your post this morning about storing legal sized documents, I have one word to say to you: scanner.

We bought an HP LaserJet that scans, prints faxes all-in-one. It ran about $100 more than the InkJet all-in-one, but the savings begin when you start buying toner/ink cartridges. An ink cartridge runs about $50-$60, and a laser printer cartridge goes for around $70, but the laser cartridge lasts 3 times longer. So buy an all-in-one laser printer/scanner and scan those documents, then write them to a CD or DVD.

Then for creating and saving your own legal documents, go on the internet and look for a program called PDF995. It's a free download that allows you to "print" documents to a pdf file, which you then save to your hard drive, CD or DVD.

I know harvesting trees is a blast for us environment-savaging conservatives, and you are really trying to support the local paper industry in your neck-of-the-woods, but it's time you joined the paperless society, baby.

[Sarcastic Mr. Burns voice]

Yes, well, sounds delightful! I can't wait to start pawing through my legal documents and scanning them like some crotchety old raccoon!

[/Sarcastic Mr. Burns voice]

Seriously Tim, I have a scanner. But do you really think I'm going to spend my day scanning twenty plus pages of legal documents, downloading a program, and then printing them off just so that I can have them in the 8.5" x 11" format that I want? That almost reaches a Lileksian level of anal retentiveness. Wouldn't it be a hell of lot easier for the banks and other institutions to provide them in the preferred format to start with?

Tobin weighs in as well:

Hah - I agree completely about the paper size thing. I never could figure out where to put those mortgage files.

It's reached a whole new level for me though. My wife and I moved to Indonesia last summer. Try dealing with the A4 paper size - ALMOST the same as 8.5x11, but just different enough to mess up 3-ring binders, sheet protectors, etc, etc. that we brought from the US, not to mention page sizes in word processing apps and printer settings. Infuriating.

Tobin makes a great point. As American imperialists, we've done a decent job dominating the world with our dollars and our language. It's time to move on to paper. In the course of my job, I do a lot of work with people from other countries and I receive electronic documents in that silly A4 format quite often. Usually you only realize there's a problem when you try to print them off and get an error message. Enough is enough. It's time to impose a new standard on the world.

They tried to foist their metric system on us. Now its time for payback. 8.5" x 11" baby. It's how the world does business. Or at least it should be.