Preach What We Practice

The third installment of our new blog series, “Preach what we Practice” where we’ll give fellow small business owners a back-stage pass to how we do business. This week I’m digging into our file management practices.

– Nate –


Background

Since we pride ourselves on a 100% paperless office, we don’t own a printer. But that also means we don’t have a scanner for receipts, order confirmations, signed documents, etc… CutePDF is a fantastically lean, little tool.

 

cutepdf-logo
Direct Download Link for Windows 7+

Package / Cost / Setup

We just use the the free version of CutePDF

The setup is pretty easy, but usage can be a little tricky – CutePDF adds a feature to the Print to File feature in Windows. This screenshot shows the basics. I press Ctrl-P to print (fairly standard in Windows), and get this dialog box.

"Change Printer to CutePDF > PRINT"
“Change Printer to CutePDF > PRINT”

And after you hit print, you need to wait a few seconds (there’s no hourglass or status bar unfortunately) until you get this dialog. Just select a folder, rename the file and click Save.

cute-pdf-save-as

 

What our business uses CutePDF for:

When we send the final version of a contract or proposal (anything that needs to be signed) we’ll either us the “Save As > PDF” option if our laptop is rocking the latest version of Microsoft Word (2007 ->), or we’ll print to file using CutePDF.

Also, we use CutePDF with Google Chrome & Firefox to print Order Confirmation, receipts, password pages, etc… and save them to the appropriate folder in our shared Dropbox account.

 

What we *DON’T* use CutePDF for:

Well, anything that doesn’t NEED to be saved to PDF, such as documents best handled in Google Docs.

 

Naming Files

CutePDF will automatically clone the current filename – so ClientName – Marketing Agreement – 092013.doc will become ClientName – Marketing Agreement – 092013.pdf

 

Uncommon Uses:


Starting this Fall, we’ll be sharing our favorite templates, check-lists, tutorials, etc… to our email subscribers. That includes everything from marketing checklists to finance spreadsheets to comprehensive how-to guides for tools such as CutePDF, and sales funnels.

Launches in early October 2013. Sign-up here to be notified of the release date and details.

One Response

  1. Google drive has a similar function that I use all the time. You can select a document to print and choose Google drive as a printer. It will save the PDF directly into your drive. I use this all the time for receipts and invoices sent through email.
    I also try to go paperless whenever possible. This is a great tip Nate!