How to conserve your Printers ink December 21, 2005 15:01 by John Sollars

Conserving Printer Ink

Colour printers plus expensive ink cartridges make an expensive equation. Everyone knows how quickly inkjet printers guzzle ink. Of course, the printer ink will eventually run dry; however, you can conserve your ink cartridge over time by using the following tips:

1. Print only what you really need: When printing a Web page, you don’t need all the information, such as irrelevant pictures, advertisements, etc. If you click on the Print icon, you would waste a lot of ink by printing unnecessary data. To avoid this, first highlight what you want to print by dragging the mouse across the words or picture. Then go to the menu located at the top of the screen and choose File. In the Print dialog box, you’ll notice an option for the Page Range. Click on Selection, and then click on Print. This way, you’ll only print the highlighted portion. (If the word ‘Selection’ is grayed out so you can't select it, it means you have not highlighted your selection. Go back and try again.) You should also double-check your print job before you begin each print so that you do not waste printer ink on bad prints. Additionally, do not print more copies of your work than necessary.

2. Print in Draft Mode: By enabling this option, your printer will print everything lighter and significantly reduce ink consumption. Draft mode gives you poorer quality print, and is best suited for printing text. Since each printer is different, you’ll have to experiment to see if the results are legible to you. To enable this option, click on Menu, then Print and Choose Preferences. This dialog box may look different for each printer, but you will see the option that allows you to choose Draft Mode. (This is usually under the Quality Options.)

3. Use Print Preview: Often, especially with Web pages, you will only need to print a small section of the page. You can print the relevant portion of the page by using the Print Preview feature. Print Preview displays exactly what is going to be printed. To use Print Preview, choose File, Print, and then Print Preview. This will bring up the Print dialog box where, under Print Range, you can choose to print only the pages you need. Click on the circle in front of Pages, and fill in the pages you want to print. You can specify the first page only by entering ‘1’ in the box, or you can choose to print a range of pages by entering 1-2 or 1-4, or you can print selected pages by separating them with a comma, i.e. 1,3,5 etc. Using this feature will also save money on paper.

4. Keep it Well Oiled: Make sure you print periodically. If you let your printer be idle for extended periods of time, the ink heads can clog up and dry out. This might result in the purchase of new cartridges.

5. Avoid Repeated Cleaning Cycles: A few printers clean the cartridge by shooting ink out through the print heads. This helps loosen any clogged ink in the print heads. However, the amount of ink used every time qualifies as a waste. You’ll save a lot of ink if you avoid repeating cleaning cycles.

6. Power Down the Printer Every Time: After usage, turn off your printer to ensure the return of the ink cartridge to its storage position. If the cartridge is in this position, and the print heads are properly covered, the chances of leakage of ink into the printer are greatly reduced.

7. Print in Black Only: This is a wonderful way to conserve colour ink. Most print jobs do not require colour printer ink. Depending on your printer, you may have the option to select grayscale printing using the black ink cartridge only. You can select grayscale printing mode that uses black ink cartridge only. You’ll be able to find the option for this in the Print dialog box. It is generally listed under the ‘Advanced’ option. If you decide to print in black only, make sure you use colour occasionally to keep the colour cartridges from drying up.

8. If you want to print a long document, try to print two sheets to a page if you can. Your printer may allow you to print in this manner in 'landscape' orientation — and you'll save considerably on paper costs too.

9. Better Paper – The quality of your printer paper can considerably affect your ink usage. With better paper, you can print at a lower quality without losing much in terms of the end print.

10. If you take a number of prints regularly, then consider a laser printer. Consumable costs for laser printers are much lesser than those for inkjet printers. Laser printers have become much cheaper in the past few years and are now an affordable choice for home printing. Colour laser printers are also available and while their prices have recently fallen, they are not yet reasonable for home use unless you do a lot of colour printing.