Today I'm going to show how easy it is to print text messages using Legal Text Collector,
an Android app written by me.
Legal Text Collector is free to install on Google Play.
Text Collector works by copying messages into "collections," then lets you share collections
so you can review them on an ordinary computer.
Since I've just installed the app, I don't have any collections yet.
I tap "new collection" to start one.
You can pick date filters if you like, but for now
I'll just leave the date filters blank to collect all messages.
The first time you make a collection, Android will prompt you to allow Text Collector some permissions.
It needs to access your phone book so it can associate names with numbers, and it obviously
needs permission to read your messages.
Unfortunately, Google made this dialog a bit confusing.
It says permission to read and send messages, even though Text Collector only needs to read them.
Text Collector never sends text messages;
they stay on your phone until you choose to share them.
If you like, you can report usage statistics to me, the developer.
The reports are completely anonymous and you're free to say no, but I'll say yes.
I have about 8 thousand messages on this phone, so collecting them will take a minute or two.
In the meantime, I'll do a smaller collection.
Back in the date filter screen, I'll pick a starting date of April 1st this year.
At the bottom of the screen, I can see that this will collect messages from April until now.
I personally don't use text messages all that often, so this won't collect very many and
it'll finish soon.
Now that it's finished, I can see that I have 342 messages since April.
Tapping on a collection lets me see how it will look.
The first page is a summary of what I collected.
Zooming in, I can see my name, phone number, the date range filter I picked and so on.
For lawsuits and other disputes, you'll often want to use messages with just a particular person.
Text Collector doesn't let you filter by person before collection, but it organizes messages
so that you can easily find someone.
The "find" button brings up a list of names and phone numbers in the collection.
If I want to see the messages between me and one of my test phones that I named "Xavier,"
I just tap his name.
The first message here is a group message from me to Xavier and Xena;
you can see both names as recipients.
Next is a video I sent.
Videos and other attachments become separate files in the output.
Pictures, however, get rendered directly in the PDF
We can see this because after the video, I'm sending Xavier a painting I made.
Down near the bottom, Xavier replied to me, somewhat doubtfully,
and I sent him back a message with an emoticon.
Sadly,Text Collector doesn't yet display emoji,
so it looks like a black diamond.
Once you're satisified that the collection is what you need, you can export it off the
phone using the "share" feature.
This is the only part that requires money, and you can share as many collections as you like
with just one purchase.
Tapping "share" takes me to a screen where I can choose how I want to share my messages.
A collection this small would be easy to send by email, but I like Dropbox, so I'll use that.
Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and others would also work.
Now I can switch to an ordinary computer.
In my Dropbox, there's now a file called "Messages.zip" I'll just unzip it to see what's inside
These files are named for the people in my collection
and numbered in case people have the same name.
Here I can see there's a PDF for Xavier's messages.
Now this is just a completely ordinary PDF
and I can print it just like I would print any other.
But what about that video?
In the PDF, notice it's called "attachment 3."
When someone has attachments, they'll appear in a folder named after the pdf.
In Xavier's folder here, I can see that attachment number 3 is a video.
That's all there is to it.
For details, see legaltextcollector.com and enjoy printing your messages.
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