You may be one of the many small- and medium-sized businesses currently struggling to stay afloat in our post-pandemic economy. Or, you may be a fast-growing start-up with a strong unique selling proposition (USP) that must be conservative about how you allocate resources. Or you may even be a huge enterprise that is trying to hold your place in an increasingly competitive marketplace. These, or any number of scenarios, can cause smart companies to evaluate every aspect of their businesses for places where they can conserve capital without sacrificing productivity or efficiency.
One ubiquitous piece of technology necessary for almost any business is the office printer. And, with many businesses moving to a hybrid or remote work environment, there is more need than ever for stand-alone printers or multifunction printers (MFPs). The good news? Your printer can actually help you save money, contributing to a healthier bottom line. Taking advantage of money saving printer features is easy, and this article will walk you through the how-to, step by step.
3 Money-Saving Printer Features to Power Up Your Bottom Line
Office technology and supplies can take up a lot of resources if they are not correctly managed. And some of the biggest expenses can be related to your print spend — from supplies and maintenance to the purchase of the printers themselves. But even once you have your printer fleet deployed and ready for operation, there are small tweaks you can employ using your printers’ built-in features that can result in big savings. Here are some of our favorites:
- Draft Mode
Printer ink is notoriously expensive. In fact, it can sell for more than $80 an ounce, which is almost three times the price of silver and four times the price of lifesaving human blood. For businesses, conserving ink usage is a critical way to save money on your overall print spend. One great way to do this is to check your printer’s software settings for a print-quality option such as eco-mode or draft mode.
Using draft modes for nonessential print jobs can help you conserve up to 10% or more ink per page by printing fewer dots per inch on the page. This might result in grainy text that is not appropriate for presentations but may be just fine for interoffice correspondence.
An extra benefit to draft mode is that many inkjet printers produce output faster in this mode, so you get the additional advantage of increased productivity with your lowered ink costs.
- Eco Fonts
Traditional fonts, with their smooth lines and dark inks, take a lot of ink to print properly. A new line of fonts, eco fonts, are designed to leave empty spaces within the drawn lettering to save significantly on ink. While your printed pages might look slightly faded — but not as faded as draft mode — you can save more than 25% ink on each page you print. You can choose to purchase an eco font of your choice online or use Ecofont software to turn your own fonts into ink-saving powerhouses.
- Duplex Mode
Just changing this one setting on your printer can help cut the volume of paper your business uses by 50%. Setting your printers to print on duplex mode will produce double-sided pages. If you need fast output, you may want to upgrade your printers to include a collating rack. Printers with these racks can print duplexed sheets as fast as single-sided paper. If you don’t need lightning-fast output, your standard printer can duplex pages using a slower, reverse-feed feature.
Automatic duplexing can be set up by an administrator for larger workgroups, or your staff can use their printer settings to manually select duplexing when it is appropriate.
Blue Technologies Has the Widest Selection of Printers to Suit Your Needs — And Budget
At Blue Technologies, we provide our clients with the widest range of cutting-edge printers from leaders in the print and imaging industry such as Konica Minolta and Lexmark. Having access to a variety of features can not only help you maximize your productivity with targeted tools, but can also help you select office technology that assists your business with cultivating a healthier bottom line.
Get access to the money-saving printer features you need. Contact a Blue Technologies consultant to explore our collection of high-performance print products.
