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Archive your receipts and account info with PDFs

Submitted by Merlin on September 2, 2004 - 1:01pm.

Mac OSX bases much of its interface on Adobe’s PDF format and opportunities to use and make PDF files are ubiquitous.

My favorite PDF trick helps me create an archived digital receipt every time I make a purchase online.

  1. Create a folder in “~/Documents/” called “Receipts”
  2. When you reach a page that presents a receipt, account information, or other stuff you want to capture for future reference, Select “File > Print…”
  3. Click the “Save as PDF…” button
  4. In the dialog box, surf to the “Receipts” folder you made earlier
  5. Name the file something meaningful to you
  6. Click “Save”

You now have a single location for all your receipts and account info . If you’re really cool, you might want to create sub-directories for each type of item (“Receipts,” “Accounts,” “MySQL Setups,” “Affiliate Reports,” etc.

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I don’t think Safari does...

Submitted by Merlin on September 21, 2004 - 8:10pm.

I don’t think Safari does that, but I could be wrong. I know IE used to and there are a variety of ways to whack a page with Firefox. Seems like a lot of work when all I want is that one visual artifact of what my screen looked like when I made the purchase.

It’s a personal preference to be sure, but the method you describe feels like snapping a bunch of snapshots of the cashier instead of just retaining the one receipt. ;-)

I think there’s room for all of us to use the method that makes the most sense to us.