Some tips for cutting back on the brochures you lug back from a trade show or conference.
Going to a trade show can be interesting and tiring. One strategy for getting though the booths in a reasonable time is to just collect the brochures and keep moving. The problem then is dealing with all the brochures as they do tend to pile up.
In this issue we’ll suggest a solution that will keep the basic information you need on your computer. It will be portable, searchable, easily shared and put a lot of paper into the recycle bin.
Brochures are great but web sites should have more, and more recent, information. You can summarize the trade show info into a set of clickable and searchable links.
All you need is Microsoft Word and some tips from Office for Mere Mortals.
The idea is a simple one but there are a few tricks to make it work really well.
Create a new document then go through all the brochures, typing in all the relevant links from the paperwork. Then the brochures and cards can go into the recycle bin!
You could add all the links to your Favorites / Bookmarks list in your browser, how that list can get very long and there’s no room for your notes. In a document you can find them at a later time from the link name but also the extra text you add. A document is also more easily shared with other people.
What type of document?
The type of document for this links list depends on the version of Word you’re using and your need.
Plain Word document (.doc or .docx)
A standard Word document isn’t the best for a list of links. The document can’t be opened in a browser alone. A link in a Word document can’t be ‘clicked’ in the usual way (you have to Ctrl + click).
Web Page (.htm or .html)
Most versions of Word can make a web page, and this is good because the page can be opened in any browser later. The downside is that any extras you add to the document (eg images) aren’t contained in the .htm file, they are saved separately. If you move, copy or email the .htm file, you have to remember to send all the linked files along as well.
Single Web Page (.mht)
In Word 2007 and 2003 you can make a .mht file, which is a standard .htm web page but with any images etc saved in the same file. An .mht gives you a single ‘all in one’ file you can move around to your heart’s content.
The downside is that .mht files can only be opened in Internet Explorer – not Firefox or Safari. That may be an issue for you. Also, make sure the .mht files are indexed and searchable by your preferred desktop search program.
My personal preference is for .mht files, despite the Firefox issue.
Searchable Words
There’s no point in making a document if you can’t find it later, programs like Copernic Desktop Search or Google Desktop Search make that easy. There are tricks to making these programs work better for you.
For a links list, make sure each link also has some key words or phrases that will help you find it later. Often the link alone isn’t enough – especially when the link name itself isn’t obviously connected to what you’re interested in.
For example, the link http://www.spg.com/ tells you nothing on its own. But add some words like: Sheraton, Westin, Four Points, Hotel, points, Starwood . Now you’re reminded that it’s the main site for Starwood – the overall name for Sheraton, Westin, Four Points and other hotel brands. Any of the additional words will make this entry pop up in a search.
Images
Sometimes a link isn’t enough, and there might be a picture that you want to keep.
You could save that piece of paper but here we’ll suggest a way to keep that image with the rest of your links. Like a links list, the image is then stored on your computer, and it’s more easily shared and copied.
Simply scan the page or image and include the picture into your document. Scanning is best but, if desperate, a photo of a page may do. Some digital cameras have a ‘document’ or ‘text’ mode to help photographing a document.
Choose the Insert menu and add the image into the document. In Word 2003 you have the direct option ‘Insert | Picture | from Scanner or Camera’ – that option was removed from Word 2007.
Add some keyword text as an image caption – the image itself isn’t indexed so you need to add some text to help find the image later. For example an image could be labeled ‘Sigourney Weaver bikini hot hot hot steaming ouch hot hot hot’ – which will help me find it later (if the image wasn’t burned into my mind already).
Articles
Even in the 21st Century there are interesting articles in printed form that don’t have a ‘real’ version on the Internet
As with photos, you need to add some keyword text to help find the article later.
The alternative is to save the article to a separate but searchable file. Most scanning software (supplied with the scanner) should let you save to a searchable PDF file. The PDF is searchable because the text in the image is converted into a machine readable form (OCR – Optical Character Recognition). The PDF file can contain multiple pages (unlike images with one for each page) and can be indexed by any desktop search tool.
On the road
You can reduce the brochure pile at home or office but it’s especially useful on the road. Instead of lugging around a pile of brochures you can make them into a links document before you head back from the convention.
Taking a scanner on the trip seems like a waste of luggage space but not always. Canon has some nifty small flatbed scanners which take their power from the USB cable (no extra power supply needed) – link. There are also smaller sheet-feed scanners available – however we’ve never tried one that has worked properly with a range of papers and documents. Either way the space and weight taken up by a small scanner can be less than the accumulated paperwork.
Of course, you can also enter links into your PDA as you walk around the trade show and supplement those links with notes and additional comments later.
