PSA: Make copies of your web content NOW

This is the one I have on my PC at home. Can't edit PDFs, of course, but it creates them just fine.

 

If you have Open Office or anything, you can copy and paste your story into a word document and then PDF it that way. That's what I do.

 

That saves the text, but it doesn't prove that it's an actual published clip. Anyone can copy and paste an article into MS Word and claim it was published.

That's why a real PDF of the Web page -- or a scan of the hard copy, if in print -- is important.

 

True. I also include the link and all the stuff on the page. It formats fine. I'll definitely look into those other things too.

 

Or a comment from good ol' Quagmire.














Giggitty!!!

 

Yeah, the last paper I was at in New England closed its doors 2 months ago. Web site kaput. Few hundred (well, lots of hundred) stories gone into the vast nothingness. Wish I had saved them when I knew I could.

 

This is why I think someday, a few hundred years from now, people will look on this as a "dark age." We have more information than ever floating around and accessible at our fingertips -- until the server takes a dump, or someone presses the wrong button, or the company shuts down. Then it's all lost forever.
We have a huge filing cabinet with clips from the 1970s onward. In 2030, I pity anyone trying to dig up archives from this decade.

 

Good point about the pay sites, 2MCM.

 

Great advice. Before and after I was sacked..er..laid off from a copywriting gig, I printed my articles from the Web site for examples. Sure enough, the articles were eventually deleted from the site. However, I did post some articles onto external sites which are still on the interweb.

 

Somebody will figure it out.

 

Hookers are people, too; say 'Thank You' when you're done.

 

Bumping this to 1) encourage people to take action NOW and 2) share a link.

I downloaded this Firefox add-on today. It makes .png screen capture images of FULL web pages (all the stuff you scroll down to, not just what's visible in your window). Very easy to use, it puts a little bug on the right bottom corner of your browser that you can click to make the screen capture. Perfect for screen shots of long articles, blog pages, etc.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146

2MCM may have some other suggestions for cool tools or add-ons that can make this archiving process easier.