3 Times to Save on Printing Costs

Everyone loves to get the best bang for their buck, but have you ever thought about ways to get a longer life out of your printer cartridges?

On any given day, you have three opportunities to save money on your printing costs: When you create a document; when you print a document; and during routine maintenance of your printer.

Try these simple tips to milk your cartridges for all they’re worth.

When Creating a Document

• Use smaller font sizes and you’ll use less ink. For most fonts, an 11-point or 12-point font is sufficient for regular, daily purposes.
• Don’t over-use the “bold” function or choose “thick” fonts. Century Gothic, Times Roman and Calibri are good examples.
• Read, re-read and read again before printing. Proofing on your screen saves hard copy errors.
• Go the route of digital photos and consider not printing at all! Sometimes a digital file is sufficient, or even preferable, to a hard copy.
• There is special software available for purchase (such as ecofont) that purports to save up to 50% in printing costs.

When Printing

• Catch errors in advance by viewing printer output before you print. Choose “print preview” and take the extra few minutes to re-read your document before committing it to paper.
• Consider printing in “draft” or “grayscale” modes for routine, everyday documents.
• Duplex or combine multiple pages into one page (saves on paper).
• Print only what you need. Free services like PrintWhatYouLike help to get rid of unnecessary and costly clutter when printing web pages.

During Routine Maintenance

• If you get a low-toner message or start to see streaks on your printouts, there is likely still toner left in the cartridge. Simply remove it from the printer and gently rock it from side to side several times (do not shake!). You will likely be able to eke out a few more pages before having to change your cartridge.
• Beware the dreaded clogged nozzles! Before assuming your printer has stopped because of a bad or empty cartridge, run a nozzle check or remove the cartridge(s) from the printer, gently wipe it with a damp cloth, then reinstall and re-try.

By implementing even just a couple of these tips, you are sure to see some cost savings in your printing bill over the long-term.

HP Introduces Its Most Compact Color Laser Multifunction Printer

HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw delivers increased efficiency and productivity for small and midsize business.

The HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw,⁽²⁾ ideal for small to midsize businesses, provides professional-quality print, copy and scanning capabilities along with time- and cost-saving features that make the printer a smart strategic investment.

Priced at $349,⁽³⁾ the HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw helps businesses save time and money over competing laser products through efficient operations and energy savings from built-in features such as HP Auto-Off,⁽⁴⁾ Instant-on Technology⁽⁵⁾ and both Ethernet and wireless connectivity.⁽⁶⁾


Businesses gain the ability to print from virtually anywhere with HP ePrint, a mobile print solution that allows customers to conveniently print emails, photos, business materials and more directly to any ePrint-enabled HP printer using a smartphone, notebook or other mobile device.⁽⁷⁾


“The M175 printer series enables SMBs to demonstrate the quality and professionalism of big companies while addressing the needs of a smaller business,” said Heidrun Gross, product manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “With its vivid color output, small footprint and low power consumption, the HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw will become a trusted and valuable business tool.”

"This cartridge is too big."

Many printers have the option of choosing either a high yield or standard yield toner cartridge. Since high yield is usually the better deal, we deliver that. It is not our intent to confuse, but confusion sometimes is the result because the high yield cartridge may be significantly larger than the standard cartridge that was in the printer.

See the cartridges pictured below. The smaller cartridge is standard. The larger one is high yield. These fit the HP P3005 printer.

Go ahead and install the cartridge, even though it looks entirely too large to fit. You will probably be surprised.

And you'll save even more money.

Printer Review - HP LaserJet P2055x

I recently began using the HP P2055x printer and I have to say... I'm impressed! It is priced very affordably and comes with many features you usually see in more expensive machines.

One of the first features I look for in a new desktop printer is if it has a LCD display - and this printer has one. While that sounds like a ho-hum feature it is very helpful when your printer is trying to tell you something.
There are few things more frustrating than having to decipher a series of blinking lights only to find out that the printer was trying to tell you that it had run out of paper. Other useful features that this printer comes with are an extra (500 sheet) paper tray, a duplex unit, and a network interface card. All of this for only $499!

After a little analysis I have computed that this printer is fairly inexpensive to operate with a cost of about 2.5 cents per page while using HP's toner cartridges. Our Southeastern Laser toner cartridges will drop the cost to around 1.75 cents per page when they become available in the coming weeks. It is worth mentioning that the Xerox 4510 only costs around 1 cent per page to operate, mostly due to its higher toner capacity, and sells for $899. If you print around 54,000 pages on the Xerox 4510 then the savings per page will make up for the price difference between the P2055x and the Xerox 4510. Just something to think about for those who really want to economize on printing costs!

To sum up, the HP P2055x seems like a really good choice for low to medium volume printing needs. Home users and small businesses would find this printer to be a reliable, capable, and inexpensive printer.