Saving Money on Printer Operation
Jul 12, 2014 09:16:15 #
This topic has come up her several times, and the latest issue of Consumer Reports has a paragraph about saving money printing with home computers.
Leave the printer turned on. Every time a printer turns on, it wastes a bit of ink. For most printing, you can use "Fast" and "Grayscale" and save ink. Do a Print Preview to make sure it's not going to print another whole page with just a word or two. Use the lowest quality paper necessary to get the job done. Save the expensive paper for something important.
I reuse paper, printing on the back.
Leave the printer turned on. Every time a printer turns on, it wastes a bit of ink. For most printing, you can use "Fast" and "Grayscale" and save ink. Do a Print Preview to make sure it's not going to print another whole page with just a word or two. Use the lowest quality paper necessary to get the job done. Save the expensive paper for something important.
I reuse paper, printing on the back.
Jul 13, 2014 08:15:50 #
I re use paper, found that the Brother printers seem the best buy as far as routine text type printing, get non-brother ink, much less expensive, for photo printing it's Canon printer and ink, various papers, Bob.
Jul 13, 2014 08:50:37 #
jerryc41 wrote:
This topic has come up her several times, and the ... (show quote)
Totally agree on leaving the printer on. Especially on Epsons.
I have to frequently print invoices, contracts, and other materials for clients. For that I have a laser printer. It is so much cheaper in the long run. A small fraction of the price per page vs. an ink jet.
Jul 13, 2014 13:30:09 #
jmizera wrote:
Totally agree on leaving the printer on. Especially on Epsons.
I have to frequently print invoices, contracts, and other materials for clients. For that I have a laser printer. It is so much cheaper in the long run. A small fraction of the price per page vs. an ink jet.
I have to frequently print invoices, contracts, and other materials for clients. For that I have a laser printer. It is so much cheaper in the long run. A small fraction of the price per page vs. an ink jet.
I never leave my printer on!
Jul 13, 2014 14:23:03 #
I tend to use a laser printer for everything apart from photo's. Sometimes I will use an inkjet for images and run through a laser printer for text. That'd be for multiple prints of the same print job.
The cheapest printer of all is the PDF printer and often that is all that is needed. especially for web pages.
One thing most people don't even consider is saving a webpage or printing as pdf, just about no one looks at the printer options to turn off the header and footer when they print a webpage either. With firefox its actually pretty easy to hide elements you don't want by changing the css.
Or you can save a page open it in libre office and just delete the useless stuff.
The cheapest printer of all is the PDF printer and often that is all that is needed. especially for web pages.
One thing most people don't even consider is saving a webpage or printing as pdf, just about no one looks at the printer options to turn off the header and footer when they print a webpage either. With firefox its actually pretty easy to hide elements you don't want by changing the css.
Or you can save a page open it in libre office and just delete the useless stuff.
Jul 13, 2014 14:50:09 #
blackest wrote:
I tend to use a laser printer for everything apart... (show quote)
Good ideas. I always check the Preview to see if it's going to print another page.
Jul 13, 2014 16:01:29 #
jerryc41 wrote:
This topic has come up her several times, and the ... (show quote)
What about a photo printer that may go a month or more between uses?
Jul 13, 2014 16:20:45 #
Erik_H wrote:
What about a photo printer that may go a month or more between uses?
If I knew I wouldn't be using a printer for two weeks or more, I'd turn it off. For example, I wouldn't go away on a trip, even for a week, and leave the printers on. When you figure that just turning the printer on is going to waste some ink, the less you turn it on, the better.
This apparently applies to laser printers, too. I had a problem with a laser printer a few years ago, and the tech told me that every time I turn it on, I waste a bit of toner.
Jul 13, 2014 17:20:06 #
Erik_H wrote:
What about a photo printer that may go a month or more between uses?
Good question. There should be a limit, and a couple of weeks to a month is probably about right. Ink jet printers do need to go through a clean cycle eventually or the jets will clog.
My laser printer has been on literally for months. Like most, it goes to sleep until called upon.
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