PRINTING TIPS
for Saving paper and Ink/Toner


Print Preview: It’s always a good idea to examine what to print in Print Preview.  The Print Preview button allows any problems to be caught before printing.

 

Click File on the menu bar, then click Print, and choose options.  If you choose Print Preview, choose to change the page orientation from portrait to landscape with the setup button . . . . . change the margins, change the horizontal centering on page and more.  Check the status bar in the gray line in the lower left corner for more information about your exact settings.

Did you know . . . . the preview shows in color only if you have a color printer as your default?


Draft Mode:  When printing, always use draft mode until you’re ready for the final print.  For regular/non-official documents use the “draft” option of the printer instead of “normal”, “best” or “high” quality.

 

Black and White: Whenever possible, select black and white print. If the final product is to be in color, a draft can be done in black and white until everything is double-checked. Then, print final copies in color.

Scale and Zoom: The clue is in the 'print' dialogue box, at the bottom right where the 'scale' and 'zoom' features are:

Select how many pages per sheet to fit in the 'zoom' drop-down. 

By selecting '8 pages' print a 20 page document on three sheets - eight 'pages' per sheet. That should cut costs!  Print more than one page of a document on a single piece of paper. For example, if changes to headers and footers have been made, you can see how the document looks by printing eight pages on a single piece of paper (only one piece of paper used instead of four). When the zoom feature is used, the document is not altered at all. It is only scaled to fit on the paper.

If the printer is of reasonable quality then find that printing two pages per one printed page should be OK for light reviewing and referencing. For content with less text, such as PowerPoint- or PDF-based presentations, anywhere between four and nine slides can fit per sheet of paper. That’s a massive amount of paper savings if the presentation is being sent out to a whole team.

Try using the zoom feature, using the procedure outlined below.

  1. From the File menu, click Print.
  2. Under the Zoom section, use the drop down arrow beside Pages per sheet to select the option you want.
  3. Click OK.
  4. When you have to print a document, try to print 2 pages per sheet.

Double Sided:  Use the “double-sided” / “duplex” option on the copier or printer.  If this double-sided option does not exist on do it manually:
1) print the odd pages,
2) flip the printed pages over and put them back in the printer,
3) print the even pages!

Write on the back of the scratch papers sheets that have already been used. Collect the obsolete printouts and create a scrap paper notepad by using a clipboard or stapling them altogether.


 

Printing Excel worksheets

 

Hiding columns:  Sometimes you may not want all the fields of a spreadsheet to print.  To temporarily hide a field, click anywhere in the field, click Format on the datasheet menu bar, and then click Hide Columns.  To redisplay the column, click Format, and then click Unhide Columns.

 

As you create a worksheet, it maybe helpful to print the formulas instead of the contents.  To do this, click Tools on the menu bar, then Options, then on the View tab.  Make sure a check is displayed in the Formulas check box, and click OK.  Then view and print the formulas.  Just reopen the Options dialog box and deselect the Formulas check box to go back to the cell contents instead of formulas.

 

Print PowerPoint

 

When you click on the File, then the Print button in PowerPoint, the Print dialog box opens.  Choose to print only certain slides by specifying which one in the Print range section next to the slides option button.  To save paper, it’s a good idea to print in handout formation, which lets you print up to nine slides per page or as little as two slides per page.  

 

In the Color/grayscale drop down, choose grayscale or pure black and white which prints without any gray tones.  The pure black and white printing option can save printer toner.  View the presentation in pure black and white or in grayscale is very useful to make sure text is readable.  To see how the color presentation looks in grayscale or black and white, click the Color/Grayscale button on the toolbar, then click either Grayscale or Pure Black and White.  The Grayscale View toolbar appears.  Use the Grayscale View toolbar to select different settings to view the presentation. 

 

If you don’t like the way an object looks in black and white or grayscale, you can change its color.  Click the Options drop down button in Print Preview and choose Black and White Setting or Grayscale Setting (depending on which view you are in), and choose from the options on the submenu.

 

Email printing

Don’t print emails if not truly necessary and enjoy the opportunities that computer and mail boxes offer: finding a mail by keywords in seconds (impossible with sheets of paper), collecting and saving a great amount of information, or transmitting information and documents to colleagues - before a presentation for example (they will have everything on their computer before the presentation starts, and you won’t have to print unnecessary handouts)

Copy from E-mail.  Most e-mail messages have unnecessary junk and/or useless forwarded information.  To prevent printing this, simply copy the important information in the message, paste it into a word processing program, and then print it out perhaps at the end of the day.

Copy and paste online material into a Word document, delete unnecessary images and text, and adjust font size and margins to use less space. 

 

One of the most obvious advantages electronic documents have over their paper cousins is the reduction in paper waste. The benefits are twofold: save money and reduce the impact on the environment that occurs during the production, distribution and disposal of the paper and ink.

Printing Web pages

 

With Internet Explorer be sure to preview the Web page prior to printing by using Print Preview because some pages are lengthy and only print the pages that have the information relevant to the task.  Often times a final page will only have the website title and link on it with no information.

 

When printing a page from the web, click File on the menu bar, and then click Print Preview.  Click the Zoom list arrow or Whole Page to confirm that the Web page only fills one printed page.  Click the Print button to open the Print dialog box and that make sure that 1 appears in the Number of copies text box.  Highlight a selection of a web page to print just that by choosing the Selection button in the Page Range section of the Print dialog box.