What this covers
- Deleting blanks and covers is free and often removes a third
- Two-up duplex is a factor of four on anything you only read
- Greyscale roughly halves consumable cost
- Draft mode is fine for mark schemes and wrong for diagrams
Printing a course's material is expensive in a way that creeps up on you: a paper here, a mark scheme there, and by March you have bought a lot of paper and several cartridges.
Five changes, in order of how much they save. The first two do most of the work.
One: delete what you are not going to read
This is free and it is usually the largest single saving. Scanned documents contain a blank page for every unprinted reverse side. Portal downloads often carry a cover sheet. Exam papers include an insert that duplicates content already in the paper.
On the six-paper pack we measured, deleting blanks and cover sheets removed 34 of 248 pages before any other change - about fourteen per cent, for thirty seconds of work.
Two: two-up and double-sided, for anything you only read
Two pages per sheet, printed on both sides, is four pages per sheet of paper. Applied to mark schemes, examiner reports and reference material - all of which you read rather than write on - it is the biggest structural saving available.
Crop the margins first. Two A4 pages on one A4 sheet puts each at about 70 per cent, and a third of that reduced area being margin is what makes two-up printing feel cramped. Cropped first, it is genuinely comfortable.
The same pack, at each stage
Measured, not estimated.
| Stage | Sheets | Saving |
|---|---|---|
| Everything, full size, single-sided | 248 | - |
| After deleting blanks and covers | 214 | 14% |
| Reading sections two-up duplex | 96 | 61% |
| Practice papers still full size | 81 of those 96 are reading material | - |
| Greyscale throughout | 81 | About half the consumable cost |
Three: greyscale, deliberately
Most study material is black text on white. Printing it in colour mode still uses colour cartridges, because colour printers mix black from the colour inks unless told otherwise, and composite black uses three cartridges to produce a slightly muddy grey.
Set greyscale explicitly rather than assuming a black-and-white document will print in black only. The exception is anything where colour carries meaning - a colour-coded diagram, a map, a chemistry mechanism with coloured arrows - and those are worth identifying in advance rather than discovering after printing in monochrome.
Check colour-coded diagrams before you go greyscale
A graph with three lines distinguished only by colour becomes three identical lines in greyscale. Print those pages in colour separately, or find a version of the figure with different line styles.
Four: draft mode, selectively
Draft or economy mode uses substantially less ink and produces visibly lighter text. For a mark scheme you will read once, that is a good trade. For a paper you will sit, annotate and reread for three months, it is not - light text is harder to read for long periods, and pencil annotations on a light print are difficult to distinguish.
It is also wrong for anything with fine diagrams, where draft mode drops detail rather than simply lightening it.
Where to economise and where not to
The distinction is how long you will live with the printout.
Economise freely
- Mark schemes - read once or twice
- Examiner reports - read once
- Specifications - referred to, not read
- Anything you will recycle within a month
Print properly
- Papers you will sit under timed conditions
- Anything with a measured diagram
- Colour-coded figures
- Your own condensed notes, which you will reread all year
Five: stop printing some of it
The honest fifth item. A mark scheme is a reference document you consult rather than read, and it is better on a screen where you can search it. An examiner report is read once. A specification is searched, never read.
Print what you will write on, measure on, or reread repeatedly. Read the rest on a tablet with the margins cropped. That single decision saves more than the other four combined, and it costs nothing except the habit.
Preparing to print less
Before a large print job
- Blank and cover pages deleted
- Reading material separated from practice material
- Reading material cropped, then set to two-up duplex
- Greyscale set explicitly, with colour-critical pages identified
- Draft mode for read-once material only
- One test page before committing
- An honest look at what does not need printing at all
Questions and answers
Does greyscale actually save colour ink?
Yes, if you set it explicitly. Many colour printers mix black from the colour cartridges by default, so a black-and-white document can consume colour ink unless greyscale or black-ink-only is selected.
Is two pages per sheet actually readable?
For reading, yes, especially if you crop the margins first so the text fills the reduced area. For anything you will write on or measure, no.
Should I use draft mode for everything?
No. It is good for read-once material and bad for anything you will annotate or keep, because light text is harder to read for long periods and pencil marks become hard to distinguish.
What is the single biggest saving?
Not printing the things you do not need on paper. Mark schemes and specifications are better on a screen where they can be searched, and that decision saves more than every layout change combined.
