Why I Love My Printer

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Call me old-school but I love my printer. See, a lot of what I do is editing book manuscripts for clients. And yes, I KNOW it can be done with Word’s “Track Changes” feature. But have you ever tried to review edits that are of the comma, period, and semi-colon variety? It’s really hard to see what it was and what it’s changing to. Plus, if you’ve already USED the feature for other edits (like removing sections or asking the author clarifying questions) the grammar, spelling, punctuation edits get completely buried in the fray.

So I print it all. Double spaced but single sided. Then I get my red pen and a pot of tea and go to town. When I’m done, I scan in the pages and email the .pdf to my client. That way she can really SEE the changes and not be lost in the “Track Changes” multi-colored mess.

Do I catch EVERYTHING this way?
Nope. I’ll admit it, I make more corrections as I’m transferring my changes from the hard-copy to the digital. But by this time, the client is comfortable with my editing style and I’m not fussed at continuing to remove ‘that’ and fix sentences that say stuff like “of course, all by favorite clients use this service.”

(Changing by to my. Did YOU see it?)

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Here’s another reason why I love my printer:
Printed pages are portable! That means that I can hang out on my honey’s couch while he watches hockey (not my favorite) and I can still read and edit manuscripts and spend time with him.

Recently, I had to read some copywriting training manuals. About 250 pages of material, 8.5×11. While I COULD have read it all on-screen, I can’t make notes and I’d be forced to sit at a computer for hours. Instead, I printed it all! A quick set of hole punches and stuffed everything into a 3-ring binder. Bang! Printed manual for my training and for my success library.

(Okay, okay, I went to Dad’s tax office and used his high-speed copier to print it double sided.)

Now, I get it that printing everything can create a lot of paper. Especially if I’m working through multiple edits of a manuscript. No problem, I have it covered.

[Tweet “Why I Love My Printer: Reason #3 – Portability”]

I shred everything!

My Dad’s tax office produces a TON of paper waste that has to be shredded because of non-personal information. But he only produces it January through April. However, he pays a company $40 a month to pick and perform on-site shredding for a HUGE trash-barrel sized container. He pays the fee regardless of if the barrel is full or not. So, he lets me dump all my extra paperwork there. And as a HUGE plus, after it’s shredded, the company has it recycled into that weird cellular blow-able insulation. I’ve got it in my attic!

If I didn’t have easy access to an office with a high-speed printer and an easy way to recycle my paper I might have to re-think my love of printing.

Do you print documents or read them on-screen? What are your must-print items?

 

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Kim Galloway
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