Death and PDFs

In a word: you can scan multipage documents directly into PDF format with Adobe Acrobat Professional, thereby saving lots of time and space.

What is so interesting about this, you ask? Well, for me, it's all tied up with intimations of mortality.

My mother, who died at 92 this year, had many excellent qualities, but it often seemed that her most passionate ambition was never, ever to be a bother to anyone. It this she succeeded at many levels, but one aspect became very clear only after her death. This was not a complete surprise, but as my siblings and I went over her effects, it was obvious that she had already disposed of virtually all her possession in advance. We quickly dealt with the shelf of books, box of photos, and few clothes -- all quite harmoniously, we are all proud to say.

Her example on this particular issue has inspired me. As I think of my own shuffling off and then regard the small mountains of stuff still filling my closets and file cabinets, I can't help wondering what I can do now to simplify the settling of my own pathetic table scraps by their designated heir and assign, whose name is Colin.

In particular, I look at paperwork. Certain personal papers of sentimental interest are understandable, though quantity can be a problem. Where I feel ridiculous, though, is that I have had trouble parting with certain artifacts from my professional life. Clearly, no one on this planet will ever need to review my proposal for a game about the U.S. Presidents that never went anywhere. And yet, it amuses me to recall the optimism that went into preparing it, not to mention the propoal's charming use of the latest technology -- photocopies! Much as I know I should dump the lot, I can't quite part with this documented evidence of personal creativity, however modest.

Enter Adobe Acrobat Professional, the software that lets you create compressed read-only PDF (Portable Document Format) documents that occupy little storage space and can be read on all computer platforms. It's probably done this for years, but I only just discovered that Acrobat lets you scan multiple pages from a scanner straight into a multipage PDF.

This means you can capture that entire proposal electronically, and then throw the original away! You can do the same with correspondence, treasured ticket stubs, wacky birthday cards, even those warm and fuzzy letters from the IRS they told you never to discard. You can zap it all right into the computer, and then haul all those files to the dumpster. Your physical environment becomes freer, larger and cleaner from the absence of all that documentation.

Arguably, none of your heirs and assigns may have the slightest interest in any of your stuff, but at least now they no longer have to make the minimum commitment of hauling boxes home and storing them in a garage or basement. Even if they never look at them, the only imposition is to take home a CD-ROM or two. Everyone has room for those.

Of couse, another advantage of digitizing your personal records that you can hand them over to multiple people. If none of your kids has any interest, maybe one of their kids will stumble upon your detritus and find it interesting. Maybe so, maybe not -- but either way, digitizing records opens a potential door in the future while removing the burden of you or anyone else having to cart around your "stuff" in the physical sense. I highly recommend it!