7 Ways to Save Money on Office Toner
When it comes to printing in offices, laser printers are by the far the way to go for. In the long run they are efficient for high volume use, cheaper than inkjets and more efficient. However, this doesn’t mean that your office printer won’t end up costing you unnecessarily more.
You cannot avoid the cost of toner cartridges completely, but there are a few things you can do to reduce them. Most office printers will have functions that will help you save money; it’s just finding the right functions for the job.
1. Print in Draft Mode
The biggest savings to be made are in reducing how much toner you use. To easily reduce how much is used, simply print in draft mode. This setting is accessible in the print driver or in print properties in applications like Word.
Draft mode works by printing only select dots from the full image that is printed in normal printing mode. It does give a lighter appearance to text, but more often than not this is still perfectly readable for daily office use. Not only does draft mode decrease how much toner is used, it also increases how fast a document prints which is a nice added benefit.
2. Use Toner Saver Mode
Much like printing in draft mode, some printers have a dedicated mode called toner saver mode instead of draft mode.
When the highest quality isn't required (such as for internal documents or proof reading), use toner saver mode. It’s also faster which saves you both time and money. When printing in toner saver mode, a printer may change the font to conserve toner.
3. Buy Compatible Toner
There's a lot of money to be saved by using compatible toner cartridges instead of original toner. Compatible toner cartridges are made by a third party manufacturer and are designed to work in your printer just as well as an original would. The only difference is in the price: compatible toner is much cheaper than original toner.
Compatible toner is designed to deliver high quality prints as well as coming with guarantees and support like the originals. Also, those made using recycled parts are better for the environment.
4. Buy High Capacity Toner
Although they are more expensive, it is always worth buying high capacity XL cartridges. These contain more toner and so print more pages. Longer lasting toner means you can spend less time changing toner cartridges and more time printing, ideal for the productivity conscious office.
5. Check Your Paper
Printing a lot of documents means a lot of paper. When you are printing lots of documents, this cost can soon add up.
Whilst it’s true that better quality paper results in better quality photo prints, is it really necessary to spend lots on expensive paper for an office. Many cheaper papers work just as well for day to day office work, and could save you in the long run.
If your printer has the function, use duplex printing. This is where pages are printed on both sides of the paper, effectively halving your paper costs.
If the type of document allows, you can print more than one page per sheet. For example, you could print internal documents two pages per sheet, which will reduce your waste paper by 50%.
For even greater value, you can combine duplex and multiple page printing. For example, a long, singled sided A4 document can be reduced to a two sided A5 booklet. This saves 75% of the paper.
6. Change the Font
Changing the font you print in can save how much toner you use as some fonts use more than others. For example, simply changing from Arial to Century Gothic will reduce toner usage by 30%.
Move toward a paperless environment in your office by printing to PDF or creating electronic files for internal documents. Putting PDF documents into a shared folder for you and your employees reduces both toner and paper usage.
7. Clean your Printer
A simple way to get more from your toner cartridges and laser printer is to take care of them. Regularly run cleaning cycles and print test pages to ensure maximum quality and that everything is working accordingly.
Check that there are no build-ups of toner and no blockages affecting the flow of toner. Doing these simple checks will get more out of your cartridges.