PaperBack v1.10
webfork on 21 Apr 2014 Change history
- 227KB (uncompressed)
- Released on
- Suggested by JohnW
PaperBack lets you back up files to ordinary paper in the form of the oversized bitmaps. If you have a good laser printer with the 600 dpi resolution, you can save up to 500KB of uncompressed data on a single A4/Letter sheet. With integrated compression, up to 3MB can be stored on one sheet of A4/Letter paper. For data restoration, you will need a scanner with physical resolution that is 3-times the print resolution.
| Category: | |
| Runs on: | Win2K / WinXP / Vista / Win7 |
| Writes settings to: | Application folder |
| Stealth: ? | Yes |
| Unicode support: | No |
| License: | GPL |
| How to extract: | Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch PaperBak.exe. |
| What's new? | PaperBack version 1.00 did not implement AES encryption properly. |
12 comments on PaperBack
donald
2010-06-10 14:04
Imagine saving something useful but small like a password or text encryption program.
This could outlast the flash memory you may have such a program stored on and allow for later recovery. (Acid free paper, sealed container with CO2 and no Oxygen)
And no it is not practical for very large files but I have heard that "small is beautiful"
PJ
2009-12-12 05:24
Hm, so I would have to use about a thousand pieces of paper to back up my latest snapshots... very efficient *g*
Portable Paul
2009-11-12 05:51
LOL, virus post-its... i'd have to walk around with a rubber stamp with a virus encoded into the image. total low tek snow-crash. That may become my IM avatar from now on. this truly opens up a ton of possibilities. most of the absurd or useless but entertaining and that's the most important part.
KingMudkip
2009-11-11 21:55
@James Curran: a) PaperBack won't give me any higher option than 300 dpi. I don'tthink it's hiding the option because it thinks my printer can't use it, because my printer can indeed do 600 dpi. That's its default setting. b) Oh yeah, I should've remembered that.
Ironic
2009-11-11 18:20
How long before we have to contend with paper based vectors for malware? From "paperless office" to...paperless office?
James Curran
2009-11-11 17:35
@KingMudkip: a) the description also says "the 600 dpi resolution" which is 4x as dense as you are using (twice as many vertically, twice as many horizontally) b) it also says "With integrated compression, up to 3MB". Your zip file is already compressed -- the integrated compression won't do much more. You should base you expection on the total size of the file within the zip. (And if the Zip has files which themselves are inherently compressed, like jpgs or mp3, consider the size of the bmps are wavs they represent)
KingMudkip
2009-11-11 17:19
With integrated compression set to max & dpi set to 300, I get a 11-page document for a 4MB zip file. But the description claims you can get 3MB on one sheet. I'd love to know why this is, especially because this program looks pretty interesting.
spchtr
2009-11-11 15:07
The program saved directly to a bitmap for me, via File>Save Bitmap, But then it gave me an error Unsupported Bitmap. WTF?
Calis
2009-11-11 11:08
Remember when we used to scan all of our text pages into the computer to save space, time and money?
Wonderful idea, thinking outside the box (or QR Matrix, as it were)! This opens up the door to many other possibilities...
Would it be possible to use a dot-matrix printer on aluminum foil?
How about laser printing on plastic film?
Steganography is another possibility: laser printers already do so - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography
v1.10