Save On Printing Costs-gctid51158

[Ajamu]

Tips How To Save On Printing Costs - PCTechBytes.com

In this economy, there are a lot of things we can do to save money at home or in the office. Adjusting your printing habits and using these techniques will allow you to save a ton of cash. To do this, you will need to edit your preferences. In Windows 7, go to the Start button, and then choose Devices and Printers. Next, right-click your printer and select Printing Preferences. Follow the steps below to maximize your printing savings.

Easy Ways To Save Money Printing

These are a few easy methods we recommend to cut printing costs. Printing is probably the single most expensive office expense. This is partly because some employees do not care about resources or their managers do not provide ways to save. These are a few simple things that can be implemented to dramatically cut printing costs at home and at the workplace.

Save On Materials – It all starts with the materials. Generally we do not recommend buying generic cartridges, but if you can fine a brand that works with your model, you begin saving right away. Preferably, you would buy original manufacturer cartridges in economy packs of two or more instead. Buying in bulk is a great way to save. You can also buy a lower grade, multipurpose paper for printing jobs that do not require a higher-quality stock. If you do go with a thinner stock, be sure to specify this in the preferences to reduce the likelihood of paper jams.

Buy A Laser Printer – Laser printers are by-far the most economical way to print–especially in larger quantities. An ink jet printer cartridge will need to be replaced more often and ultimately costs hundreds (if not thounited snakesnds) more than laser printer toner over its lifetime. Laser printers have come down dramatically in price.While the toner might cost more up front, the cartridge will last a lot longer.

    Tip: be sure to look for a network-ready laser printer so everyone on the network can print to it.

Print In Economy Mode or Grayscale -  We highly recommend adjusting the quality settings in your printer for normal day-to-day printing. You can lower both the brightness and contrast of the printout and still easily be able to read the text. You can also set color documents to print to black and white.

Save money by printing to grayscale

Most printers will give you the option to manually adjust the level to a degree where you feel you are not sacrificing readability for savings.

Print Two Pages On One Sheet - Another often overlooked way to save money is by printing two pages to one sheet. You can also print two pages to one sheet on both sides, effectively saving three sheets of paper and toner.

print two pages to one sheet

For this particular model, the option to print two pages to one sheet was located under the Profile settings. Your printer model might list this option under a different setting.

Setup Default Economy Printer – Switching these settings back and forth between economy mode and default quality is a pain. Therefore, we recommend you setup two printers in Windows. In fact, you can setup as many as you want using the same printer! You do this by installing the printer the same way you initially installed it on your computer. Windows will prompt you to "Replace Existing Driver" or "Keep Existing Driver." Keep the existing driver. Next, name it something like Economy Printer and then go in and set the printer preferences as described above. Save these options, and then switch to this printer whenever you want to save money. You may even choose this printer as your default printer and switch to the normal printer whenever you need to print high-quality jobs.

Preview Print Jobs – Lastly, most applications will allow you to preview your print jobs before you send them print them out. Looking at a preview will allow you to fix margins or other formatting problems before you print out a hard copy.

[Ajamu]

Ink-flation: Printer Cartridge Prices Are Climbing Quickly | PCWorld

Epson, Kodak, and Lexmark have raised prices on some of their  inks--in many instances, faster than the rate of inflation. HP's prices  also seem to inch upward when the company releases new models.

By Melissa Riofrio, PCWorld                             May 16, 2012 9:00 pm        
                                                                                                                       

If  you get the feeling that the cost of replacing the ink cartridges on  your inkjet printer is getting out of hand, your impression may be more  accurate than you realize. Between 2009 and today, the rate of inflation  has increased by 7 percent. During that same period, the cost per page  of some vendors' inks has risen by anywhere from 4 percent to 30  percent. Yes, 30 percent.

  We review 50 or more printers per year, and we price the cartridges for  every one of them. About 8 months ago, I began noticing that ink  cartridge prices for some models were going up--sometimes sharply. When I  dug deeper, I also saw that the price increases seemed to be selective:  Some inks went up; others stayed the same; and one even dipped  slightly. The biggest hikes I observed came from Lexmark and Kodak, but  Epson's color ink costs have been rising as well. Meanwhile, HP seems to  be nudging ink costs upward in its newer models.

  Most vendors declined to comment on my findings. Only Kodak readily  acknowledged the price changes, noting that its inks were still among  the cheapest available.

 Lexmark, Kodak Hike Prices the Most

  Lexmark's printers are getting better, but unfortunately its ink prices  are getting higher, too. From 2009 to the present, I tracked price  increases on the company's 100 and 100XL lines of ink cartridges, which  are used by the cool-looking Genesis, the consumer-oriented Interact S605, and the small-office Pinnacle Pro901 and Platinum Pro905.  The basic Black Return Program Ink Cartridge, for instance, cost $16 in  2009 and is $19 now. Since the cartridge's yield didn't change, its  cost per page jumped from an already exorbitant 9.4 cents per page in  2009 to 11.2 cents per page now.

 

  To Lexmark's credit, it still sells the 105XL, a $5, 510-page black ink  cartridge that is a true bargain at less than a penny per page. Alas,  it's compatible only with the Platinum Pro905, the Pinnacle Pro901, and  the Prestige Pro805 (we have not reviewed the latter product).

  Kodak's inks remain among the least-expensive available, but within the  last year the company has raised prices on all of its supplies. Its 30XL  high-yield color cartridge's cost per page went up by just 4.8 percent,  from 6.2 cents per page to 6.5 cents per page. But all of the others  increased by between 11.6 percent and 30 percent. The two biggest jumps  were for black ink: the company's 10B and 30 black cartridges rose in  cost per page by 29 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

 

  Epson has raised the prices of inks in its 124, 125, 126, and 127  cartridge lines--used by popular Stylus and Workforce models, including  the recent Stylus NX430 and Workforce 845.  From late 2010 to now, all of the black inks' prices have increased by a  reasonable 4 percent to 5 percent. Meanwhile, the costs per page for  colors have shot up by 10 percent to 12.5 percent.

 

  Contrarily, the price of the company's 124 Moderate-Capacity Black ink  cartridge dropped a bit, from $8.54 to $8.49 during the same period.  That small decrease does little to balance out the increased cost of the  color inks for the same product line, unfortunately.

  HP's ink prices are an interesting case. The prices of its ink  cartridges tend to remain steady over time. I noticed, however, that  when a new printer model replaced an old one, the new one often used a  different type of cartridge--and the new cartridges cost a little bit  more. In other instances, the new printer model's cartridges cost the  same as the older one's cartridges, but the yield changed--sometimes for  the worse.

  For instance, the standard-size 920 black ink for the HP Officejet 6500A costs the same as the 932 black ink for the Officejet 6500A's successor, the HP Officejet 6700 Premium.  But the 932 cartridge's yield is lower: 400 pages, compared to 420  pages for the 920 cartridge. As a result, the newer printer's cost per  page for standard-size black is a little higher--5.0 cents per page,  versus 4.8 cents per page for its predecessor.

 

  There is a brighter side to this particular sequence: Though the  Officejet 6700 Premium's color cartridges cost more than the Officejet  6500A's, their yields are also higher, so the cost per page remains  essentially unchanged from generation to generation in this instance.

 Some Ink Prices Seem Stable

  I lacked sufficient data for two vendors: Brother and Dell. Brother's  inks are sold by third parties, and their prices can vary widely. Dell's  prices seem to be stable for the few printers we've reviewed; however,  their inks tend to be among the priciest in cost per page.

  Is there any safe haven from ink-price inflation? Canon uses the same  ink cartridges across many models of printers and many generations of  those printers. The company's prices seem to be the most stable overall.  Canon's costs per page tend to be about average, though its  lower-priced printers (not surprisingly) have higher-cost inks.

  Regardless of which printer you own, it never hurts to shop around for  the lowest-cost source for replacement inks—which may not be the printer  vendor's own Web store. If third-party inks start to look like a better  deal, check out our experiences with refilled and remanufactured inks before you go that route.