Save Money on Printer Ink By Changing Your Font

Last year, a 14 year old discovered how to save the US government $136 million per year in printing costs. How? Via a science fair project of course.

6th grader Suvir Mirchandani noticed the increasing number of printed handouts he received daily in his classes and then took it upon himself to figure out how his school could reduce their printer ink consumption. By conducting a series of experiments comparing typefaces and the amount of ink used, he discovered that by simply switching from Times New Roman to Garamond, his school district could save as much as $21,000 per year in ink costs.

Now, if you’re printing at home, I don’t imagine your printing 30 copies to hand out to your students (unless you run a home school) but everyone wants to save money and prolong the life of their ink cartridges. Thus, if you’re currently printing your documents in Times New Roman, make the switch to Garamond.

Also, in 2010 Printer.com conducted a study comparing fonts and the amount of ink used by each. They discovered that again, by simply changing the font in which you print your documents you could save as much as 31 percent off your ink and toner cartridge expenses. The winning font in their test: Century Gothic!

The thin and light font even beat out Ecofont - a typeface designed specifically for reducing printer ink costs. Ecofont takes traditional typefaces and inserts miniscule holes into the font to reduce the amount of ink used.

Although the study did not include Garamond when comparing fonts, it found the top 3 fonts for reducing ink costs as follows:

•  Century Gothic
•  Ecofont
•  Times Roman