subject: Ink Cartridges - 4 Strategies To Save You Money! [print this page] Printer ink cartridges represent the major cost of using a printer for businesses and individuals. Over the life of a printer the cost of the replacement ink cartridges will be much more than the cost of the printer itself. These are four strategies that can reduce the amount of ink used in a printer and thus the cost of associated with ink cartridges.
Strategy #1: Change The Fonts
There are dozens of fonts or typefaces available for printing. Some of these fonts are serif fonts and others are sans serif. Serif fonts generally use thinner lines to form the letters and sans serif fonts use thicker lines, so changing fonts could cause a saving in ink usage.
Analysis is needed to determine which fonts use less ink but still offer good readability. For example, Arial is a very popular sans serif font. But if another sans serif font, Century Gothic, were used, there would be a 30% savings in the number of ink cartridges used in printing. Also, using fonts with the descriptor 'light' or 'narrow' in the name contribute to ink savings. Reducing use of bolded letters in documents would also save ink.
One environmental challenge is that while changing fonts can reduce the number of ink cartridges used in printed documents, the new fonts may result in longer documents and the use of more paper. So ink cartridge costs are reduced but paper costs are increased. An answer to this problem is to change the size of the new font to a smaller but still readable size.
Strategy #2: Change Printer Settings
The document quality indicator on the printer can be set on 'draft mode,' 'economy mode,' 'toner saver,' or the equivalent. These modes require less ink and in most cases result in a document that is perfectly readable.
There are other printer setting changes that can save ink. One is a command that tells the printer to print two or four pages on one piece of paper. Always using the print preview function ensures that unnecessary letters or images are not printed.
Strategy #3: Use New Printing Programs
Recently a new eco-friendly font has been developed that uses 25% less ink. Therefore, a quarter of the cost of buying ink cartridges can be saved. This program forces the printer to print letters that have little empty circles in them. The letters look like they are made out of Swiss cheese but are still very readable.
Also, one company is marketing a program that can be programmed to tell a printer how much ink to save. The user just indicates how much savings to engender and the printer reduces the amount of ink used to print a document. The user can select from 0% to 70% ink savings.
Strategy #4: Don't Print
Reducing printing tasks will certainly reduce the number of ink cartridges used. Documents can be stored and transmitted as .pdf files. Using these strategies to change some printing habits can save the cost of a lot of printer ink.
