Save Money Printing

Even a moderate amount of office printing can become quite expensive, especially if you are frequently printing in color or doing large print runs. Choosing your printer, and adjusting your printer settings can save you a considerable amount of money.

Laser or Inkjet

Having just one color inkjet printer may seem cheaper than running two printers, but even if you print just a dozen black and white pages a day, a laser printer could pay for itself in less than a year.

Inkjet printers are usually very cheap to buy as it is on the replacement cartridges that the manufacturers make their profits. A standard black inkjet cartridge usually only lasts around 500 pages before it needs replacing. Laser printer toner is usually around twice the price of an inkjet cartridge, yet can last for 6000 pages. That’s quite a saving. If you are getting through one inkjet cartridge a month, then a laser printer toner would last a year, with a saving of the price of 10 inkjet cartridges. For the price of those saved inkjet cartridges, you could probably buy a small laser printer.

However, a word of warning, not all laser printers are the same. Some are sold using the same technique as for inkjets - cheap initial cost, but expensive ink. Its important to check not only the initial cost of the printer, but also how much replacement toner costs, and how many pages its prints.

Do you need to use so much ink?

Are printing documents just for office use, maybe to pass round at a meeting and be scribbled on. If most of your printing is just for internal use, why not change the default printer settings to print in draft mode, rather than quality mode. It can often use less than half the ink, yet look almost identical. Ideal for office use.

Large print runs

If you regularly are printing large quantities of the same document, maybe fliers, notices or advertising, then instead of printing on your normal printers, it may be cheaper to use a local printing company. They can normally provide even small print runs at a lower cost can you could do it internally, and all that may be required is for you to email them whatever you want printed. If you want to keep the printing inhouse, then it may be worth looking a specialised high speed printers such as risographs, which can save money on small print runs, even over using a laser printer.
Related Links
Printing two pages per sheet
Solving common printer problems
Printing Pictures in Windows XP
Printing in Windows

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