Printer ink and toner is expensive. Here are some tips to help you save money when printing.
Purchase a Cost-Effective Printer
Low-cost printers generally use expensive toner and ink cartridges. You might get a great deal on the printer but that will quickly be eaten up by the cost of supplies. Inkjet printers use ink cartridges and laser printers use toner. Generally, you pay more for a laser printer but save over time on toner costs.
You might also consider an ink tank/eco tank printer. These are inkjet printers that use ink reservoirs/tanks instead of ink cartridges. You refill the tanks with ink.
When shopping for a printer read some reviews on which makes and models are the most cost effective.
Buy an MFP (multi-function printer)
An MFP can print, copy, scan and fax. You can make your own copies and scan documents. You can save the scanned documents to your computer to create digital copies. If you need to send someone a copy of a document, you can scan it and email it to them instead of printing it.
Print in Black & White
Set your printer to default to black and white when printing. Use color only when needed.
Print on Both Sides of the Paper
Use double sided printing, known as duplex printing. Printing on both sides of the paper can cut your paper usage in half.
Optimize for Printing
When you are printing from a website some have a “print-friendly” option which removes ads, images and other content leaving just the text when printing.
If a website does not offer a print-friendly option, you can use Print Friendly which is a free website that optimized pages for printing, clearing out all the clutter and printing just the text.
Or https://txtify.it/ which converts web articles to plain text.
Use Reader View or Immersive Reader in your Web Browser
Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox and most other web browsers have an option called reader view or immersive reader. This removes ads, buttons, background images, videos and other content and optimizes the webpage for printing and reading.
Not all websites support reader view but if they do you will see an icon in the address bar to switch to reader view.
Use a Word Processor
Another option is to copy and paste anything you would like to print, a webpage for example into a word processor. Then you can delete and edit text and resize and remove images and other content. Using a word processor give you full control when editing the document and optimizing it for printing. You can also save the document and send it to others and convert it to a PDF file. There are several different options when pasting content into a word processor. Most allow you to keep source formatting, merge formatting or paste text only.
Choose a Print Friendly Font
Choose a print friendly font that uses less ink. Times New Roman, Ryman Eco, Garamond, Courier are all good choices. You can also reduce the text size.
Use Print Preview
Use print preview before printing. If there are pages you don’t need eliminate those before printing. You do this by specifying which page numbers you want to print. If what you are printing appears to large you can downsize by adjusting the scale percentage. You can also eliminate headers, footers and background images.
Consider Not Printing
If you need to share a printed copy with someone else, consider converting it to a PDF file and sharing that instead.
Windows has a built-in conversion utility called Microsoft Print to PDF. It will take any document and convert it to a PDF file. You can then share it with others through email or in the cloud.
It is also a great way to digitalize any document you want to save.
Use Sleep Mode or Unplug
Printers consume energy when they are running. Most printers offer a sleep setting. Enable that so your printer sleeps when it is not in use. Or unplug your printer when you are not using it. Even sleeping devices consume power. Unplugging it will save on energy costs.
The Tech Minimalist 