I really don’t like printing out a document and then throwing out that piece of  paper. I feel like I throw out more paper than I really want to. I have a nice easy way to store, review and markup PDF’s while keeping it all digital.

I feel good that I can save paper and have all my PDF’s with me.

I try to minimize the amount of paper that I print and subsequently through out. Most of the time I just need to read something once or reference it once in a meeting.

For something that I’m only using as a reference it seems wasteful to me to print it out and then throw it out.

I do find that on occasion I may need to go back and reference the same document in another meeting down the road at some point. That lead me to “store” documents in a project file folder. I would thumb through the folder to find the right document. Most of the time I would find it right away but sometimes it took a while to find it.

What a great feeling it is to have the document right at my fingertips on my iPad. It’s easy to scan through them and find the right document.

Plus I’m not wasting as much paper as I was.

This system has 2 components Dropbox & PDF Reader.

Dropbox Setup: 

• Create a folder in Dropbox that will contain all your PDF’s.
• Setup sub-folders based on your clients and your  projects.
• Drag and Drop and PDF into the appropriate folder. It’s really that simple.

PDF Reader: 

• Link to your Dropbox account. You do this under the accounts section.
• Pick the folder you created in Dropbox that will contain all your PDF’s. Set it to sync.
• Open the folder and find the PDF that need to reference.
• Mark it up using the tools in PDF reader. When you are back at your desktop all your markups remain.

I like having “a digital file folder” filled with relevant documents. I also like saving on paper. I don’t want to print something out then throw it out a few minutes later. This is a pretty effective method for solving both issues at once.

Let’s talk more about this on Twitter.