10 Ways to Save INK November 09, 2005 14:27 by John Sollars

10 tips to save money on ink for your printer

With more and more demands to print colour documents and photos in the home and at the office, using ink more efficiently is now high on the agenda. In order to help you save ink in your day-to-day usage here are 10 quick and simple ways to become more efficient.

1) While buying a printer, it is important that the cost of the supplies be compared against the cost of the printer. This means that a printer, which is more expensive to buy but saves money on supplies later, can be a better option than one that costs less to begin with. The cost of supplies can add up if the printing volume is high. In this case a laser printer is recommended, as the cost per page is almost half as compared to an inkjet printer's.

2) Some people like to use refillable cartridges. There are various types available and often they are sold in black and colour versions. Refillable cartridges can be great money savers though you will usually need to undertake the refilling process by hand. For some cartridges this may mean getting your hands dirty.

3) Another way to keep the cost of printing low is to print documents in 'draft' mode. This typically will compromise on the quality greater on the visible quality of photos, but reduces your document printing costs substantially. This is recommended primarily for documents that are used at home or in-house at the office where the highest resolution is not imperative. The quality will be good enough to read but not necessarily good enough for documents that need to be sent out of the office. This method can reduce the ink usage by up to 50%.

4) If you don't use colour a lot, perhaps try using a black-only laser printer as this can prove to be much more cost effective. If you consider the effect on a 1000 page print run the difference in cost for printing can end up working out £20.00 cheaper.

5) Always try and check the yield before you buy any cartridge. This is the typical number of pages that a toner or ink cartridge can print. Most manufacturers base their calculations assuming that about 4-5 percent of the page would be covered by ink. So a cartridge that has a yield of 450 based on this assumption would be expected to print at least 450 pages of text.

[JOHN PLEASE MODIFY prices/ brands below AS YOU SEE FIT]

An Epson black ink cartridge that yields (according to the manufacturer) about 450 pages costs about £15 and the same printer uses 4 colour cartridges each of which costs £8.50 for a 420-page yield. This is when you print documents.

Remember for photo printing the ink covering the surface of the page is generally much greater. This means printing a photo uses a lot more ink than what the average calculation allows for.

6) Keep an eye out for the sunken starter cartridge. Many low cost printers come with starter cartridges which last anywhere between 60% to as little as 33% as compared to regular cartridges. While buying a printer in such cases, it is important to factor in the cost for an early replacement of the ink cartridge..

7) The printing paper could be a key money saver for you. The heavier, whiter and the more specialized paper is often the more expensive. It is recommended to save them for the final print. The effect on quality of using cheaper paper can be minimal if you are primarily printing text and again this will often by fine for in-house copies and drafts. Simply chose to use the best quality paper when you know your document is just right.

8) Sometimes the printer manufacturers reduce costs by not supplying the parallel cable that is used to connect the device to the computer. In this case, you could shop around for a cable. There is no need for an expensive model with the gold shielding unless there are other devices near the printer that interfere with it on a regular basis.

9) An obvious way to save on the ink would be to print smaller. This practice is known as n-up printing in the industry and saves paper. You can access this feature by right-clicking your printer icon and choosing 'Printing Preferences', which brings up a dialog box where you might also find a page-scaling feature that lets you squeeze a legal-size page onto letter-size paper.

10) Here a few printers that can be considered for the following specialized tasks:

Brother HL-5040 – Best for plain text and rudimentary graphics plain text and rudimentary graphics.

HP DeskJet 5150 – Print per page cost is more than HL 5040 but it’s outstanding for art and photos.

Samsung CLP-500 – Is an expensive buy and the print per page cost is less than HP and the Brother HL-5040

About the Author John Sollars is the managing director of Solar Electronics, which are both ink and pc peripheral suppliers based in Shropshire, UK. To access a comprehensive online shop of original and re-manufactured printer inks please Stinkyink.Com