How to generate an offline transaction?

[spooderman]

Ok so I have my paper wallet. (thank you community for helping me make this.)

I am confident in the security of the private key.

However, can someone give a fairly un-techy spooder a step by step guide on how to generate a transaction offline and broadcast it to the network?

I have no idea how, and I don't want to transfer it to a hot wallet, spend what I need and then send the remaining back to another paper wallet.

I have a laptop with linux and no hard drive I can use.

Thanks

(edit: if this has been explained to death already, please point me in the direction of the thread)

[Newar]

To generate a transaction offline you would use something like the Armory online/offline model where an online system exists. To sign a transaction offline you will need to know the amount of unspent outputs etc. IMHO you'd better use Armory straight away if that is your use case, i.e. if you need to do this frequently.

Most people use their paperwallets only one time. Import or Sweep the key into a wallet that has access to the blockchain data one way or the other, make your necessary txs, including the rest going in a new paperwallet. The old one goes in the bin. Not necessarily something you want to use everyday. Hence the term "cold storage".

Another way (and probably the easiest) is spending with Mycelium (Android). They have a dedicated "Spend from cold storage function". The key is in the memory only during the signing process and any change goes back to the paper wallet. Once that's done all the info is wiped.

There's pros and cons to each of these solutions.

[finlon]

Here are 2 great threads for creating an offline transaction and broadcasting it to the network:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=89490.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=89501.0

What is the problem in creating a new paper wallet?

[spooderman]

Thanks very much for the advice, and those two links are excellent. I knew this had to have an existing discussion in the past.

There are some clever people in this forum. My mind boggles when I start to understand how the code works from a non-techy perspective.

[Newar]

Let us know how it goes!