Reduce Your Printing Costs

Reduce Your Printing Costs

Reduce your overall departmental printing costs thru user education and

simple, easy to use printing techniques.

Office of Information Technology Hardware Support

Rebecca Goodman Todd Klingaman Adam Re

Reducing Your Printing Costs

How much does Princeton University really print?



Last year, 10,632,117 sheets of paper were printedin the libraries and OIT clusters.




If stretched end-to-end, these pages would stretch for 1,845.85 miles. This distance is two-thirds the width of the United States, twice the distance from

London to Rome, and three times the distance between Princeton and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

A ream of paper sits two inches tall and contains 500 sheets of paper.

This much paper would be over 3,544 feet tall when stacked.








But this was only 20% of all University paper needs!








But this was only 20% of all University paper needs!

During 2007-2008, the University purchased a total of

53,279,500 sheets of paper


So you can see that printing is a large financial endeavor at Princeton and cutting costs would have an impact on reducing the budget at the

University.


What is the single most important

component to reducing printing costs?


What is the single most important

component to reducing printing costs?

User Education


We can channel our cost cutting measures into the following areas:



• Reducing paper usage




• Reducing toner usage





• Printing Efficiently






• Printing Electronically






• Printing Electronically

• Increasing User Awareness


Reducing Paper Usage


Reducing Paper Usage•Print double sided whenever possible. Make sure the duplex mode is the default on your departmental printers and copiers.





•Turn off cover sheets and blank pages. If each of your print jobs comes out with a cover sheet, consider turning cover sheets off if possible.


Reducing Paper UsageTurn off cover sheets and blank pages.




•Turn off the printer’s start up page. Many printers have an initial startup page printed out when first powered on. We have over 1000 printers on campus. If energy policies dictate printers being turned off each day, we can save a lot of paper this way.





•Use ‘Print Preview’ feature before you print. Rather than printing your document to see how it looks, use “Print Preview” before you print. This will allow you to check formatting and margins. Print only after you are satisfied that your document is formatted properly.


Reducing Paper Usage•Use ‘Print Preview’ feature before you print.


Reducing Paper Usage•Use ‘Print Preview’ feature before you print.






•Use ‘Pages Per Sheet’ feature. This feature reduces paper consumption by allowing you to print up to 16 pages per sheet of paper per side. For example, it is possible to print a 48 page document using only 6 pieces of paper.


Reducing Paper Usage•Use ‘Pages Per Sheet’ feature. This feature reduces paper consumption by allowing you to print up to 16 pages per sheet of paper per side.


Reducing Paper Usage•Use ‘Pages Per Sheet’ feature. This feature reduces paper consumption by allowing you to print up to 16 pages per sheet of paper per side.

Four pages per sheet One page per sheet






•Use ‘Pages Per Sheet’ feature. This feature reduces paper consumption by allowing you to print up to 16 pages per sheet of paper per side. For example, it is possible to print a 48 page document using only 6 pieces of paper.

• Employ ‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing. This feature is standard on most newer printers and copiers. You may print the document, but it does not come out of the printer until you walk up to the printer and release it.


Reducing Paper Usage‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing. Choose printer and select ‘Properties.


Reducing Paper Usage‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing. Select ‘Other Options’ then Print and Hold


Reducing Paper Usage‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing. Some of the available options.


Reducing Paper Usage• Employ ‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing.


Reducing Paper Usage‘Print and Hold’ or ‘Walkup’ printing. Select what option you want.


Reducing Paper Usage

Use “Uniprint” to manage printing on departmental printers.

Departments can put networked printers on Uniprint, a print management system that keeps track of each print job. Currently, OIT and the Library use Uniprint to manage public printing stations. With Uniprint reports you can monitor who is printing and how much. Uniprint also has optional print release stations that allow you to print confidential material and reduce unnecessary printing.

Any department interested in using Uniprint should send email to [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Reducing Toner Usage


Reducing Toner Usage

•Print in ‘Draft’ or ‘Econo’ mode. This reduces the amount of toner applied to the paper.


Reducing Toner UsagePrint in ‘Draft’ or ‘Econo’ mode.


Reducing Toner UsagePrint in ‘Draft’ or ‘Econo’ mode.


Reducing Toner UsagePrint in Black and White or Grayscale.


Printing Efficiently


Printing Efficiently• Larger, high volume printers are more cost effective than smaller desktop models. Sharing larger, high volume printers is more cost effective than having many small printers. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the printer, the higher the price per page (ppp). Departments can save money by discouraging the use of small printers on each desk and, instead, having larger centralized printers. Walk a few extra steps to pick up output – and save money!


Printing Efficiently• Larger, high volume printers are more cost effective than smaller desktop models.

Phaser 3124 desktop

3.0¢ per page

Phaser 5500 workgroup

.85 ¢ per page

The Phaser 3124 costs 353% more than the Phaser 5500

to print a single sheet.



• B/W prints on color printers are not always inexpensive. Printing in color all the time is expensive. Use black and white as the default print mode or use grayscale. If you print color all the time, or black and white, your consumable costs may not change . While using less toner is good, there is still a higher b/w cost associated with color printers.



•B/W prints on color printers are not always inexpensive.

In this example, the color prints on the Phaser 6130 are about 10.6 cents each, while the b/w prints are 3 cents. The black and white prints are still about 3 times more as expensive as printing on a monochrome

printer. Even though it is black and white, it is still expensive.

Color printing B/W printing

The same file printed in both color and b/w.



• B/W prints on color printers are not always inexpensive. Printing in color all the time is expensive. Use black and white as the default print mode or use grayscale. If you print color all the time, or black and white, your consumable costs Amy not change . While using less toner is good, there is still a higher b/w cost associated with color printers.

• Inkjet printers vs. color laser printers. While inkjet printers tend to be initially very inexpensive, the cost of the cartridges make the cost per print deceivingly high. Laser printers have a higher initial cost, but the cost per print is significantly lower.



•Inkjet printers vs. color laser printers.

The Lexmark X6650 inkjet costs 287% more than the Phaser 7760 laser to print a single sheet.



• B/W prints on color printers are not always inexpensive. Printing in color all the time is expensive. Use black and white as the default print mode or use grayscale. If you print color all the time, or black and white, your consumable costs Amy not change . While using less toner is good, there is still a higher b/w cost associated with color printers.

• Inkjet printers vs. color laser printers. While inkjet printers tend to be initially very inexpensive, the cost of the cartridges make the cost per print deceivingly high. Laser printers have a higher initial cost, but the cost per print is significantly lower.

• Increase the functionality of the departmental copier. Putting a departmental copier on the network makes it a multifunction machine – in addition to being a copier it is a document server and a scanner. Your copier can also serve as a networked printer, replacing a pricey desktop printer for your casual printer users.


Printing Efficiently•Increase the functionality of the departmental copier.

Departmental copier printer interface


Printing Efficiently•Increase the functionality of the departmental copier.

Departmental copier web interface


Print Electronically


Printing ElectronicallyHow can I use technology to send and save documents?



• Save documents on a network drive. Send an email and let the recipient look at a copy electronically rather than a hard copy.




• Save documents on a removable media. Keep a copy of the file on a USB thumb drive or external hard drive so that you can transport the file in electronic form rather than working from a paper file.





• “Print” the file using the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer or by creating a PDF file. This will generate a ‘picture file’ of the document that you can store on your hard drive. For example, print your PeopleSoft requisition receipts this way and never use a piece of paper. Print a travel reservation and send the confirmation to the person via email.


Printing Electronically•“Print” the file using the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer or by creating a PDF file.









• “Print” the file using the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer or by creating a PDF file. This will generate a ‘picture file’ of the document that you can store on your hard drive. For example, print your PeopleSoft requisition receipts this way and never use a piece of paper. Print a travel reservation and send the confirmation to the person via email.

• Scan the document using your copier and send via email. Send documents to your department via email rather than filling their mailboxes with paper.


Printing ElectronicallyScan the document using your copier and send via email.


User Awareness


We can raise the awareness of these simple cost cutting measures by :

• Discussing the this info session and the FAQ with your SCADS or DCS and support personnel .




• Developing your own printing cost cutting plan for your department using the ideas set forth here.





• Inform your personnel about the costs associated with printing and how they can help





• Inform your personnel about of the costs associated with printing and how they can help

•Asking questions.


‘Printing FAQs Tips and Tricks’

and

Reduce Your Printing Costs

Will be available in electronic form on

the OIT SharePoint Site

Documents

Reduce Your Printing Costs