Save Ink February 21, 2012

Cutting back on printing is key, but using various fonts can save ink.

A  2010 study at University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, showed they saved $10,000 by switching  all default printing to Century Gothic (this blog post is set in this font face).  They say it uses 30% less than Arial.

This article explains others fonts to use to save ink mentioning a study by  Matt Robinson to determine ink usage of various typefonts. His study shows Garamond followed by Courier are the most economic.

The ecofont (the one with hole!) is even better and you can download the Ecofont Vera Sans regular for free if you register.

Think before you print January 3, 2011

A new year and new resolutions. How about an easy one – less printing? A new green format called WWF that allows one to save in a pdf style format but allows NO printing.  Created by World Wildlife Fund, this free downloadable format for both PCs and Macs, allows you to save emails, messages, resumes, documents, etc. in this WWF format but those receiving the document will not be able to print it.  could be annoying at times but also a good way to change habits for yourself and others, with things do not need to be printed on paper.  Read more & download  the format here.

Print What You Like of a web page October 5, 2010

PrintWhatYouLike is a free online editor that lets you format any web page for printing in seconds  saving money and the environment.  It helps you eliminate printing web pages full of ads, empty space and other junk you don’t want.  Enter a URL and you get a screen with the web page image and legend of options such as to show or hide the  background, images, and  margins; change the font size and style; and save as various format. The best part – on the page itself, you can choose different areas/pieces of the page (indicated by their red box that highlights as you mouse over it) and the  isolate, remove, widen, resize, save clip or select only.  View the demo for details.

Greening your computer June 1, 2010

Here are some helpful tips about power management and printing: The Ultimate 5 Ways to Go Green on Your Computer (thanks for the tip Stacey!)

All fonts are not equal August 3, 2009

Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth in their work Measuring Type analyzed fonts at the same point size to see how much ink they really use, aka,  how economical they really are.  According to the article by inhabitat on their project, the conclusion “Use light, serif-based Garamond instead of bold and compact Impact.”

Also check out a recent post i did on ecofont – a free font that uses less ink by being holey!

EcoFont June 16, 2009

Not only should we cut back on paper use in printing but ever thought about cutting back on ink? Try downloading this  free eco friendly font -  Ecofont -  developed by SPRANQ (from Utrecht, The Netherlands). The idea was how to create a font using less ink and how to much of a letter can be removed with it still being readable.  This font has empty circles in its letters and uses 20% less ink.  For normal 12pt printing it looks a little grayish but very readable; trying blowing it up and printing and you can see the circles in the letter but still readable! And thus the name spranq  “After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well.”

Xerox Sustainability Calculator April 4, 2008

(from Cnet’s Green Tech Blog)

The sustainability calculator from Xerox will allow businesses (or libraries!) to figure out what sort of cost savings and environmental improvements can be had by reducing the amount of equipment installed and to help people use fewer copiers and printers. The Sustainability Calculator is available online.

Green Printing January 31, 2008

GreenPrint World – a new, free application  (for windows users) detects and highlights unwanted content before printing such as banner ads on a Web page, images that tends to spill over onto extra pages, etc. It also allows users to delete images they dont want to print, and create quick PDF files for easy printing.

GreenPrint World estimates regular users of this application will eliminate over 1400 pages a year and save $90! And it will spare 100 million trees from being chopped down and 300 million tons of greenhouse gases from polluting the atmosphere. 

Download the free application here.