Back up home office documents online

It’s important to archive your documents as you go, or designate a time to archive at the end of each month.

Whether you choose DVDs, external hard drives, or online storage, it’s important to back up your documents.

There are many reasons to archive your home office documents:

• Meet compliance standards: Many organizations are legally required to retain their business communications for a designated period of time.
• Easy to access and share: Having a well-organized archive of your business documents makes it easy to locate, retrieve, and share important information.
• Speed up processing time on your computer: The more files stored on your computer, the more random access memory (RAM) is used—which slows down your computer’s processing time. Enjoy quicker computing when you archive files you need to keep but do not need to access often.
• Peace of mind: Between computer crashes and natural disasters such as fires and flooding, there is the possibility of losing your business records. By backing up your documents—whether it’s using DVDs, external hard drives, or online storage—you are protecting your valuable information.

Learn more about the basics of archiving your home office documents.

Archiving documents online is secure and private: only you and those with your permission are allowed access to your files.

HP Web-connected printers offer helpful HP Print Apps for printing from Reuters, Portfolio.com, Biztree, and more—PC-free!¹ There are even apps to upload business records to the Web.

Whether archiving tax or medical records, bills, letters or other home office documents, online storage has many advantages:

• Large storage capacity: Online storage allows you to archive a large amount of information in one place.
• Economical: Many online storage sites offer a base storage amount for free—Google Docs offers 1024 MB free with the option to purchase additional storage. Plus, save on ink and paper costs accrued when printing documents for archiving.
• Secure and private: Only you and those with your permission are allowed access to your files. And, in the event of a fire or flood, your important records and documents will be safe.
• Access anywhere: Online storage systems offer easy, on-the-go access to your data. You’ll be able to access and print your information from any Web-connected device—from home or remotely.

If you own an HP Web-connected printer, you can access helpful HP Print Apps, including Google Docs eStorage App to scan documents to store on the Web.¹

Before archiving documents using the eStorage App on your printer, you will need to create a Google account online

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Before you can begin archiving to Google Docs from your Web-connected printer or computer, you will need to set up a free Google account using your computer.

Create an account:

1. Go to Google Accounts to begin.
2. There will be a short registration process, including entering your e-mail address and creating a password. If you already have a Google account that you would like to keep separate, you may want to create a new e-mail address dedicated to Google Documents.
3. Activate your Google account by logging into your e-mail and clicking on the link sent to your e-mail address.

Step 2: Touch the eStorage App on your printer’s touchscreen.

Step 4: Touch Scan & Upload

Many HP Web-connected printers offer the Google Docs eStorage App allowing you to scan hardcopies and instantly upload them as PDFs.¹ Plus, many Officejets feature an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), making it easy to upload multi-page documents.

To upload documents:

1. Touch the Apps button on your printer’s touchscreen.
2. Select eStorage.
3. Log in or select a user.
4. Touch Scan & Upload.
5. You can touch Settings to rename your file, choose between 1- or 2-sided scanning, select black-and-white or color, and more.
6. When finished with your settings, press Done.
7. Load documents onto the scanner bed or into your printer’s ADF.
8. Touch Start Scan.

And that’s it! A successfully scanned document will result in a message on your touchscreen, letting you know the file was saved.

Don’t have access to a Web-connected printer? You can still archive to Google Docs. Use an HP scanner to scan documents to your desktop and then follow the From your Computer instructions below. Or, find a Web-connected All-in-One with this app.

Google Docs supports many types of formats you can upload, convert, and then edit, including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings.

Step 3: Drag documents from your computer or click Select more files to upload them manually.

You can upload almost any document from your computer. These can be documents you’ve scanned yourself, received via e-mail, or created on your PC.

When uploading documents from your computer to Google Docs, you can:

• Archive original documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more for safekeeping, preserving, and formatting. You will be able to view your document online and download it for editing using its original software.
• Convert documents for online editing. (Note that doing so may remove the document’s formatting.)
• Use Optical Character Recognition (OCR), allowing you to convert images with text, scanned documents, and PDFs into editable text. Again, doing so will remove the document’s formatting.

To upload documents using your PC:

1. Log in on Google’s homepage, then click on the More drop-down menu and select Documents.
2. Click Upload.
3. Drag documents from your computer or click Select more files to upload them manually.
4. Select the folder destination.
5. Click Start Upload.
6. After uploading, click on Back to Google Docs to view the documents.

From your HP Web-connected All-in-One: Step 3: Select the folder where your document lives.

From your HP Web-connected printer: Step 3-6: Touch the documents you would like to print, and then touch Preview or Print.

One of the most convenient features of online storage is that you can access your documents from anywhere in the world! And, when you use Google Docs, these documents can be accessed and printed from either your computer or HP Web-connected printer.¹

From a HP Web-connected printer:

1. Touch the Apps button on your printer’s touchscreen.
2. Select eStorage.
3. Login or select a user if already logged in.
4. Select the folder where your document lives.
5. Touch the documents you would like to print.
6. Touch Preview to switch printer preferences from color to black and white, or
7. Touch Print.

From a computer:

1. Once logged in to your Google account, click on the More drop-down menu and select Documents.
2. Click Upload.
3. Choose the document you’d like to print.
4. Click File, and from its dropdown menu, choose Print.

HP Officejet Pro 8600 Premium e-All-in-One
$399.99

The Google eStorage app featured on the HP Officejet Pro 8600 Premium e-All-in-One makes archiving documents a breeze! Discover other innovations that make this Web-connected printer a home office workhorse:

• Print directly from a smartphone, laptop, or other mobile device with HP ePrint.²
• Access HP Print Apps from the 4.3" color touchscreen display, including Google eStorage, USA Today, Portfolio.com, and more!¹
• Print for a cost of up to 50% less per page compared with lasers printers.³
• Streamline large print projects with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder and secondary 250-sheet input tray.

HP Print Apps are now available on many HP printers and All-in-Ones. Visit the HP Wireless Printer Buying Guide to find the printer that meets your needs.