Ink & Paper Saving Tips for Printing On Your Mac

by Jazmin Hupp, Tekserve Staff

Save yourself some money (and the environment) with these four easy tips.

1. Duplex - Double the Sides, Use Half the Paper

Automatically: Many laser printers and a few office inkjet printers have a duplexer that will turn your paper around to print on both sides. To tell the printer to double-side the document that you are printing, choose File > Print then select the "Two-Sided" checkbox circled in red. If you don't see the checkbox, press the discloser triangle circled in green.

If you're using OS X 10.4 or earlier, you may not have a "Two-Sided" checkbox at all. Instead, from the pop-up menu circled in purple, chose Layout. Then select Long-edge (for vertical documents) or Short-edge (for horizontal documents). 

Manually: If your printer can't double-side documents, you can become a human duplexer. With some trial & error, you can figure out which way to place the paper in the printer to print on the blank side with the right orientation. (On my printers I mark which way to orient the paper on the paper tray.)

For multi-page documents you can print your odd pages first by selecting the pop-up menu circled in purple and choosing "Paper Handling". Choose "Odd Only" from the "Pages to Print" options. Wait for your pages to dry before feeding them back through the printer for the even pages. (Wet pages can gum-up the insides of your printer.)

2. Preview - What Pages You Actually Need

After you choose File > Print, the print dialogue box will show a small preview picture of each page. Flip through your document with the arrows circled in yellow to check if there are any unnecessary pages included. Change which page numbers should print if you find anything you don't need.

If you don't see the print preview, you may need to select the disclosure triangle circled in green or press the Preview button in the lower left comer.

3. Monochrome - Color Costs You Double (or More)

You can see in our Laser vs. Inkjet Printing Guide that color printing costs two to five times more than black & white pages. I use the monotone Lexmark E260 in my home office for the least-expensive prints. When creating documents, avoid adding unnecessary color to prints. Most web browsers will allow you to skip printing backgrounds to save unnecessary ink (circled in blue above for Safari).

Telling your color printer to only use black ink, isn't as easy as it should be. You can try these various methods, which range from creating monotone PDFs to adjusting settings on your printer's drivers. If you're using OS X 10.4 or earlier, you can print a black & white document in two-steps using this method.

4. Margins - More On The Page

Fit more text on fewer pages by using narrower margins (the space around the outside of the page).

Word:  You can change your default document margins in Word by going to Format > Document. Here you can cut your margins in half using the boxes circled in green. (Note: Margins under 0.5" may cause some printers to cut your text off.) Press the Default button circled in red to make your new margins standard on new documents.

Pages: First create a new document in Pages. Then click the Inspector in the toolbar, click the Document button, and then click Document. Reduce your left, right, top, and bottom margins. When you're finished adjusting your blank document, choose File > Save as Template. Use your new template automatically on new documents by choosing Pages > Preferences. In General Preferences choose "Use template:" and select your new template.

Published July 9, 2010 5:09 PM
Last modified on July 15, 2010 3:34 PM