I’ve been trying to get a small proofreading business off the ground lately, and I obtained my first customer yesterday! Once upon a time during my earlier proofreading jobs, I had to drive to the company’s office, get my printed copy of the document, and do the work right there. But happily, there’s a much more eco-friendly option, one that won’t require me to go anywhere and won’t even use hard copy versions of documents: good old e-mail! I had my first client e-mail–I accept both Word and PDF files–her document to me, which I will send back once the job is complete. Even our agreement was done via e-mail: I e-mailed the job agreement to her, which she signed with a scanned signature, and boom! Done!
Speaking of PDF, I love the stuff because it’s convenient as hell. Sometimes, though, you might need to convert your files to PDF. Adobe Acrobat, one of the main choices for the purpose, costs an arm and a leg, but thankfully, there are loads of other PDF creators out there which are much cheaper, or are even available for free!
Yesterday, I found doPDF while hunting for Adobe Acrobat alternatives. What really caught my eye was an item on their list of benefits.
Do your part in saving the planet – instead of consuming paper to print your document, why not create a PDF file out of it and spare a couple of planet-saving trees?
So it looks like I’ll be downloading the software pretty soon. Good of them to include the environment in their thoughts, too.
