Paperless office fallacy

It should come as no surprise that an HP executive called the paperless office a fallacy – there’s little chance someone working for the world’s largest computer printer maker would say otherwise.

HP senior vice president Bruce Dahlgren says: “It’s unrealistic to think that printing is just going to go away”.

Computerworld Australia reports him saying: "The way people print and copy is changing." Dahlgren says people are printing more documents but fewer pages. They take more care about what gets printed.

I do the same.

Since starting my paperless journalist project I’ve managed to cut the number of printed pages by more than 60 per cent, but zero remains a long way off.

I rarely print incoming documents for reading. But I still need to proof-read on paper – especially when I write important or longer pieces.

There’s no question I catch more errors in my work when proof-reading paper documents. I’m not alone. Online reading is tiring and online proofing is less accurate.