What Are Other Ways to Save Money on Printing?

Changing Print Quality Can Save You Money

By Dr. Bob Spencer

You don't have to go out and buy one of the new modern printers and inks to save money printing; you can reduce your printing costs right now with just a few minor tweaks.

I have witnessed instances when taking just a few simple steps can save a company from hundreds to thousands of dollars annually.

Printer manufacturers set printers to their highest quality print resolution at the factory so that you can enjoy the finest high quality print out of the box. However, how much quality do you need in a tax return? I know, as long as they can read it, that's fine – after all the IRS just needs to read the return; no one said they need to enjoy reading the return.

And of course, no one says, “Wow, that is the prettiest tax return I have ever seen; just look at that print quality!”So, here is the magic. If the default print resolution, the number of dots printed per inch (dpi) to make up the character or image, is set high, say 1200 DPI, or higher, more ink is used. And this is a standard default setting for a number of printer manufacturers.

If you change the setting to what might be considered an optimal resolution, or 600 DPI, the document will print in half the time, and you used half the ink!

It's as simple as that. In my experiments, I have used 600 DPI as optimal, as this is the Optical Resolution for printing and scanning. Any higher and you are most likely using digital resolution, which is an extrapolation of the optical image, and in most cases is really not necessary. If you like the idea of a possible 50% savings at 600 DPI, consider that for most reports and many forms (tax returns for example), and a resolution of 300 DPI or even 150 DPI is just fine.

Is it worth a little time experimenting for an up to 80% savings in ink and print time (as well as just wear and tear on the hardware?)

Start by checking your settings on your printer. Since I do not know what printer you are using and manufacturers use different methods to change dpi settings, I can't tell you exactly where your settings are. So you will have to dig out your user manual, or go on-line to the manufacturer and retrieve the user manual for your model. Follow the directions to adjust the settings. The greatest savings are with printers that are two years plus old. Newer printers will allow you to define print resolution settings from the Printer Preference menu; Select Paper/Quality and change to default, or in some cases, the resolution may be changed directly from the printer menu buttons themselves.Select a few of the most common documents you print and test them at various resolutions. If you reach a low resolution where the text looks grainy (fuzzy,) you have gone too far, go to the next higher level and stay with that. Taking the time to set your printer resolution will pay off in many dollars saved.

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Dr. Bob Spencer is an internationally recognized writer, lecturer and consultant. You may e-mail him drbob@tsif.com, or visit him at Twenty Seconds In the Future..



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