Printing Money

 Cutting Costs in Your Print Environment

Even in a booming economy, businesses small and large are constantly looking for ways to tighten their financial belts. An often untapped area for savings is the print environment, and in the modern office, that can add up to a significant amount of money. Here are some ways your company can spend less money on ink, toner, and paper.

Print less – With a little effort, you can easily cut down on unnecessary printing. Before printing, take a moment to decide whether or not it actually NEEDS to be printed. Be conscientious about what you print, and encourage your employees to do the same. Distribute documents for review digitally rather than printing out hard copies. 

Get the most out of your paper – Besides reducing the amount of printing in your office, another smart way to use less paper is by utilizing both sides of the paper you do use. Duplex printing enables you to print on half the amount paper!

Print only what you need – Printing from a website can produce an awful lot of waste, such as graphics, banner ads, footers, etc. Freeware such as PrintWhatYouLike enables to you to print only what you need from a URL, and preventing ink and paper from being wasted on content and images that you don’t. 

Utilize your settings – Using ‘economy’ or ‘draft’ as the default setting for your printer will reduce the amount of ink used, and can be overridden whenever you need to print something in high-quality. Color ink is more expensive than black ink, so print in black and white or grayscale whenever possible. And many programs offer a ‘shrink to fit’ option that will print what you need on less paper.

Choose the right font - Use lighter, ink-saving fonts that require less ink, such as Century Gothic instead of Arial or Times New Roman, or even invest in an “ecofont,” which significantly cuts down ink usage. And reducing the font size of your documents will also reduce the amount of ink you use. 

Proof your work – Before printing a document you are working on, perform a spelling and grammar check, and review it for errors. This can save both ink and paper by reducing the amount of times you print materials.

Cutting down on the amount of ink, toner, and paper your business uses will lead to cost savings, and might just make it seem like you are printing money!