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Can you help me archive Ask Leo! answers on my computer for future reference?

Question:

As a matter of course, I label and archive your Answers weekly for future
reference. The most I’m likely to never refer to and it becomes rather tedious to
search the archives. Can you help with a suggestion with how best to
selectively duplicate the occasional answer that I know I shall want to refer
to on later occasions? For example, isolating a specific answer for and
including and forwarding to a separate folder on my PC. Please forgive me. This
is such a simple question that I ought to be able to sort it out on my own, but I
don’t have the confidence.

In this excerpt from
Answercast #9
, I look at ways to organize webpage information on you
computer, permissions in re-using articles, and suggestions for
organization.

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Save to PDF

Not a problem at all. It’s not actually that uncommon a question. My recommendation for what I do (and in fact for almost any site on the internet that you want to save) is to install CutePDF writer or some other print-to-PDF program.

I mention CutePDF because I actually recommend it elsewhere on the website.

What happens is when you install it, you end up with another printer on your system. When you print to it, it does not actually print to a physical printer, but it creates a PDF file of whatever it is you’re printing. So hopefully, you can see where I’m headed. If you find an article on Ask Leo! or if you find an article on the web that you want to save for yourself, print it to PDF.

Organizing files

Then come up with your own strategy for folders and organization. That’s not something I can really dream up for you; but come up with something that makes sense for you and then drop those PDFs in the appropriate folder according your organizational scheme.

It’s a fantastic way for keeping things for future reference if you don’t want to rely on a website always being there.

Reprint rights

As a side note, if you print articles from Ask Leo! to a PDF, it’s not kosher to share them. There are copyright issues with that, but you’re absolutely permitted to print and save a copy for your own personal use on your own personal machine.

(Click here for more on reprint permissions)

In fact, I’ve done a little bit of tweaking. I haven’t tested it in awhile, but if you print an Ask Leo! article, a bunch of things on the page will automatically not print. In other words, you won’t see the ad; you won’t see the footer (I think). There’s a couple of random things on every page on the web that, if you print it to a PDF, or if you print it for any reason, will come out more cleanly. It won’t annoy you with ads that expect you to click on something… but you’re looking at paper so there’s nothing to click on.

Next – Can I delete Microsoft Office updates to free up disk space?

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2 comments on “Can you help me archive Ask Leo! answers on my computer for future reference?”

  1. There is a small app called Readability (http://www.readability.com/addons). The Readability browser add-on installs buttons that let you Read Now, Read Later and Send to Kindle. It removes ads and almost everything else other than the main text. The text can be printed in pdf format.

    Reply

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