If you are serious about cutting your printing costs then the following tips can help you do just that ! If you do a lot of printing you will find that by using some or all of the following techniques you may reduce your printing costs by up to 50%.
Having the right printer is certainly the best way to start saving, make sure that you buy a printer which uses individual cartridges for each colour and check that generic cartridges are available before making the final decision.
If you do large amounts of printing and you need it done fast then maybe a laser printer is what you need. Laser printers can also be economical to use providing that you are happy to use high quality generic toners and drum units as these are up to 60% cheaper than the genuine ones.
Tips to reduce your printing costs
- Chosing the right printer - This is the obvious starting point. You need to chose a printer which is capable of using a Quality "compatible" ink cartridge which will perform trouble free and at the same time be cheap. Our list of the best and most economical printers is a great guide to get you started. Make sure that whatever you do "DONT" buy a printer which uses cartridges with a built in printhead ! These are generally the printers which use only 2 cartridges. Avoid these like the plague as they are designed purely as a money making machine for the printer manufacturers. The replacement cartridges usually end up costing you more than the printer did.
- Change your font - If you change font it has been proven that Century Gothic and Times New Roman fonts use around about 20% less ink than do Arial and Sans Serif. This alone represents a large saving. Another tip is to reduce the font size and reduce the amount of Bold print used.
- Change you "print" mode - changing your print quality mode to a lower setting will also signifigantly reduce the amount of ink used. If you are only printing pages of text then try using the "Draft" mode.
- Use the "Print Preview" - by using the print preview you can avoid accidently printing stuff which you dont want. This also gives you the chance to delete URL info and page numbers etc which all help chew up your valueable ink.
- Avoid printing in colour - try to avoid printing documents in colour if they dont need to be. Often we waste loads of ink printing things which really would be fine in black and white.
- Use both sides of the paper - we can also save on paper costs by printing in "Duplex" mode which utilises both sides of the paper. You may also consider using no longer needed documents for printing on the reverse. (just a thought).
- Print Regularly - with an inkjet printer you need to print at least one or two small pages of full colour per week. This keeps the ink flowing through the printhead and avoids the ink from clogging or drying in the fine print nozzles. It could save you a load of problems in the long run, dont be a miser as it could cost you more for repairs.
- Use High Quality Paper - Believe it or not cheap, low grade paper requires more ink to create an image than a quality paper will. This is due to the more porous, rougher surface of cheaper papers. Also cheap paper is much more likely to ruin your printer as it tends to leave a lot more paper dust in the printer and on the pinch rollers which in turn leads to paper jams.
- Leave your printer turned ON - If you are going to be using your printer on and off all day then LEAVE IT ON. Turning a printer on and off encourages it to increase the chance of the printer cleaning itself (printhead clean). A cleaning cycle really chews up the ink as it forces bulk ink through the print nozzles and onto the wastepad below. Huge amounts of ink is wasted through this process.
- Adjust your Margins - by reducing your margin sizes when you print can also save you a heap of paper. This is especially so when you print large amounts of documents, if you can reduce all the margin sizes you can often save at least one or two sheets of paper per dozen printed.
- Don't Print! - Often we get into the habit of printing just because we can when really we could quite often just read from the screen. If you dont like this idea maybe you need to increase the font size on your monitor to make screen reading easier.
- Use Grayscale - If you are printing documents for yourself then maybe you dont need to print in colour. By printing in grayscale you will save a bundle on printer ink as grayscale only utilises the black cartridge where as just printing a blackish page in normal mode will draw on ALL Colours and use more ink. Make sure however that you still print at least one colour page a week to keep the ink flowing through the print nozzles.
- Switch to Ecofont - Ecofont is a font specifically designed to save your valuable printer ink. By switching to Ecofont alone you could save up to 20% on your printing costs.
Change to generic ink cartridges or toner
One of the biggest ways to save money on your printing costs is to use non genuine cartridges. Nowadays the quality of a really good generic ink cartridge or toner is virtually the same as the genuine brand name cartridge but at a fraction of the price.In the past generic cartridges were frowned upon as often they would leak, not be recognized by the printer or simply not work at all. Ink Hub's range of compatible inks and toners, we believe are the best on the market. The print quality and page yield are guaranteed to equal or exceed the more expensive brand name cartridges and every product comes with a 60 Day Money Back Guarantee. Take a look at this comprehensive insight into the differences between Genuine and Compatible Printer Cartridges.
These days there is only one major difference between high quality generic ink cartridges and genuine ink cartridges. The difference is that the more expensive ink will outlast the generic ink when exposed to high levels of UV. It wont fade as quickly as generic ink will, however under normal conditions this is not an issue and most folks dont care as they simply want cheaper priced inks. It's also very cheap these days to go to places like Officeworks or Harvey Normans and print your photos when you need them and use your home printer for everything else.
So there you have it, a few ways to cut down on printing costs which are very simple and will help save you money.