Apparently, ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. If it were sold in gallons it would be more expensive than Channel perfume, oil, wine -- you name it. This is an issue for both individuals and businesses. Especially as the value of the dollar drops every day and our dollar does not buy near what it used to. Unfortunately, it appears things will get much worse. There are many obvious ways to save money such as brown bagging instead of eating out for lunch, carpooling, and cutting our 1,000 cable channels to the basic 150 channels. Most people don't think about the cost of their ink until they need new cartridges. Here are a few ideas to help you get more out of your cartridges.
- Only print what you absolutely need a hard copy of. I prefer to read a long email or document on paper rather than scroll page after page on a computer screen, but doing just that will extend the cartridge life. Instead of printing receipts or invoices so you can file them in your file cabinet, think about developing an e-file system. You can file by date making it easy to retrieve files and more difficult to spill your Diet Coke on them. There are many companies and software that provide back-up services to ensure that your files are never lost or destroyed. External hard-drives are relatively inexpensive and have the ability to store endless amounts of data.
- Print at least one page per week. This sounds counter-intuitive, but by printing on a regular basis your cartridge printheads will stay fresher and you will get a larger percentage of the available ink. For many people, printing at least a page per week is done by monday morning. However, if you are one of those people who rarely use their printer -- doing this will give you a longer cartridge life. Try printing the configuration page or the demo page in your printer menu. This will print a little of every color and keep your printheads from drying out.
- Use your printer's "Printhead Cleaning" function. Most cartridges, new or refilled, will require using this function every once in a while to maintain the quality of your prints. If you have never used this function there are a couple of ways to do this. If your printer is connected to a computer you can run this from your computer. Go into the Start menu and choose Printers and Faxes. Once you locate your printer, right click on it and scroll down to Properties and left click. From here there may be a Maintenance tab at the top or go to the Advanced tab. Look for the Printhead Cleaning function and run it. Most printers also have the ability to perform a printhead cleaning from the printer itself. Either through a combination of pressing different buttons or through the Menu or Settings buttons. See your printer's operation manual for complete details -- every printer is a little different. One word of caution -- using this function excessively will eventually drain your cartridges. So use this function in moderation.
- Only print in black unless color is necessary. As is the case in most printers, your black cartridge is less expensive and holds more ink than your color cartridge/cartridges. So printing using only the black cartridge as often as possible will cost you less in the long run. There are a couple of ways to go about this. Most printers will open a window each time you press print. Click on the Properties button and select Gray-scale. Some printers also have an advanced setting that allows you to default all printing to black and white when selected. This is another function that is best described by referencing your operation manual. However, if you are printing only in black and white you need to upgrade to a monochrome laser printer, which will drive down the cost of your printing dramatically.
If you begin using just one or two of these ideas you will notice a difference in how long your cartridges last and a longer gap between each ink purchase. Ink is not the only controllable expense, but it is an expense that we do have some control over.
