Save paper by ’screen printing’ and saving online receipts instead of printing them out

Here’s an idea to help you save paper and printer ink. When you’ve completed an online order you’ll often get a confirmation page displaying your order details. Often the website will say something like:

Print out this page for your records

It’s a good idea to save your order details for future records but there’s really no need to print them out when you can simply save an electronic copy of the receipt on your computer.

Not only does this help save paper and ink, it may save you filing space and make your document management easier: all orders made online are also recorded electronically helping you keep track of online orders separately to orders made offline.

How do you do it?

It’s very easy. When you see the order confirmation page simply click the ‘Print Screen’ key on your keyboard (located above the ‘Insert’ key and to the right of the ‘F12′ key on most keyboards):

After clicking the screen print key, open up your default Paint or image editing programme: e.g. Windows Paint or Adobe Photoshop. Create a new file by clicking File > New. Then paste your screen print into the file by pressing and holding ‘Ctrl’ and the ‘V’ key on your keyboard.

Now save the file into a new folder named receipts. Name your receipts wisely so they’re easy to find.

Backing up your electronic receipts

Now, you could back-up your receipts to CD but why bother? Instead open a free Microsoft Skydrive account and store all your receipts on Microsoft servers. That way you can access your receipts from anywhere in the world — how about that for accessibility and secure storage.

Save more paper with electronic documents

Many retailers are now offering the facility to have your invoices and statements emailed to you or downloaded rather than posted. This saves paper and petrol by reducing the volume of post sent on the road. If you’re a customer of The Consortium you can sign up for electronic documents today — it only takes a minute and we’ll donate a pound to our nominated charity for every customer who signs up.

Conclusion

Next time you’re told to print, stop and think. Would it be better, easier and more eco-friendly to save your documents electronically?