Cut your printing costs in half

Consumer Reports lab techs recently ran tests on several printers from different brands to see whether we could appreciably save ink, paper, and time by tinkering with the printers’ settings. The answer is “Yes,” especially for black-and-white documents. Our tests showed that you can cut the cost of printing a page in half by following the suggestions below.

Print in draft mode. Try printing out a page of text on the printer’s “draft” setting (sometimes also called “fast” or “quick print” modes). The print quality will be reduced, but if you don’t need the document for any professional use, chances are that the lower quality will suffice for everyday tasks. Not only will your ink cartridges last longer, in this mode pages usually print faster.

Get the most out of each sheet. Many printers have a setting letting you print double-sided pages. The printer will print the odd pages first, then prompt you to return the printed stack, blank side up, into the paper feed to print the even pages. Some printers now even flip the page automatically. It’s a great technique for printing longer docs.

If you can handle reading slightly smaller text, you can also adjust your setting to print two pages side by side on a piece of horizontally oriented paper. —Nick K. Mandle

Comments

[Jill Center]

Thanks so much for the suggestion to print via "fast/economical mode." Also, the commentary from fellow subscribers is very useful.

Here's a related question: For my new HP C5500 printer I would like to go to Walgreens (drug store/Western US) and have them refill on one of their special machines. They are able to calibrate for the precise make/model of printer and cartridge. This would be a considerable savings. However, is this safe for my printer?

The reason I ask:
I used their service early this year, with my now-gone Dell printer. The cartridge exploded when the technician was refilling it; they said it was probably old (true, I had not gotten around to recycling it, it was old). I went home and pulled out the cartridge that was limping along on empty; they successfully refilled and I successfully used that one. Still, my concern is that the cartridge might explode in my new printer, thus creating far larger expenses.

Thanks for any insights and experiences.

[Bill]

On a related note, inkjet refill kits are becoming more popular with consumers. This news release came out today which compares the costs of HP replacements versus Remanufactured cartridges versus do-it-yourself refills:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/ink/inkjet-cartridges/prweb3051794.htm

Looks like refilling your own will run about $7 versus $50+ for new cartridges at Staples.

[Sally G]

I'd love to be able to print my color documents in B&W sometimes for drafts and volume use (and to see how copies on an office copier will look), but so far haven't found a setting to do so on my printer. For a while I got the darn test page to stop printing every time I started up the printer; but it's back! I saw an ink-saving font cited on EcoGeek some time ago that has little white circular drop-outs in the characters, which are not visible in small type sizes (thus using less ink than a solid design of similar style), and could actually be a design element for display type. I think it is called EcoFont.

[Gary]

Don't take the print utility's ink level as gospel. I've been printing for weeks even though my black ink level on my HP DeskJet is 0%

[Gerald Skrocki]

The best way to save printing costs is to buy the correct printer for your needs. Laser printers are more economical for printing text and a duplex unit will save time and paper. Ink jet printers are optimized for photos. Most consumer ink jets are designed with tiny ink cartridges and manufacturers make their money from selling ink. That is why the price for the printer itself is relatively low. Finding a printer with larger capacity ink cartridges is key to keeping printing costs down. The larger the ink cartridge, the lower the cost of the ink.

[Peter]

You can save a lot more by refilling your own inkjet and laser toner cartridges. I have been doing this for years and it probably saves me 70-80%. Google the model number of your printer and you'll find lots of sources for refill kits.

[Mark Victor Smith]

One other tip to save ink:

WordPerfect and other wordprocessors have a "shading" or similar setting on the "Font" menu which allows you to control the darkness of the print put on the page. Default is 100%; set this to a lower number and you'll use less ink.

Other applications may have similar settings available.

To set your printer to draft or fast print mode (anything more economical than "normal"), you need to display your printer's "Properties" menu, If you go through through Control Panel -> Printers, you can set the default for all documents. In the "Print" dialog box when you choose to print a document, you set the printer for printing just that document in a more ink-economy fasion.