Scrap it

Print Scraps or Not?

One reason people pull scraps out of another document is they want to print off the scrap for posterity's sake. Don't do it! Just save it as an electronic file. Why defeat one of the main reasons to have a computer, in the first place? Store your documents electronically, not as sheets of dead tree material. This helps the environment and saves you money.

You can buy a PDF printer driver for very little money, and many programs even come with this. You probably have one already. A PDF printer driver gives you a "printer" option for converting a document to PDF instead of to paper. It's very convenient.

Also, you should have a good flatbed scanner, so you can convert your paper archives to electronic ones. There's no reason to store all of your records as paper, anymore. Not only does that take up space, but you can't "search" on a paper-holding filing cabinet to locate a document. And there are many other advantages to electronic archiving over paper archiving.

Let's assume you're pretty careful about printing, doing it only when it really makes sense. Here are some tips to help you save money:

• To avoid paper jams, observe the grain of the paper. One side of the paper is rougher than the other. This is the grain side. You want your paper rollers to grab this side. When you open the ream, the grain side of every sheet is facing the same direction. Observe that direction. Load your paper with the grain side up. If it jams, then turn the paper over so the grain side is down. Whichever way produces the least number of jams, do it that way going forward.
   
• Don't select the highest quality print setting by default. Think of "print quality" as "ink intensity." Not only do you use up more ink, but you increase the likelihood of the worst possible paper jams because that ink does soak the paper and makes it soft. Much of what you print doesn't need much quality. Faxes, which people used to read routinely, are around 100 dpi. Setting your printer to 300 dpi for "I want to read this long article later" makes sense. Setting it to 1200 dpi for that purpose does not.
   
• Use the manufacturer's ink. While it's true that a generic replacement brand costs less per cartridge or that it's cheaper to refill a cartridge rather than to buy a new one, the reality is you will "save money" at a much higher cost than if you bought the manufacturer's ink cartridges. Why is this? The cartridges and inks have patents, so the generic can't be identical (which protects the manufacturers who invest big buck in R&D to make great new products). The knock-off cartridges do things like leak, dry up, smear the page, soak through the page, etc., all of which defeat the purpose of printing in the first place. To avoid generating garbage, buy your ink from a local office supply store and bring your empty cartridges back to them for recycling. This helps support your local stores and it helps protect the environment.
   
• Clean your printer. It's amazing how little care computer peripherals actually get. Mice and keyboards routinely build up gunk and then people seem surprised when they stop working. Printers have maintenance needs, too. Use canned air (or your house vacuum set to blow) to blow out dust from inside the printer enclosure. Don't blow air across the print head or related mechanism; focus your efforts on the paper handling system. If your printer sits on a table, move it from that spot and clean underneath it. You will likely find ink residue and dust, both of which can cause premature failure.