3 Ways To Lower Office Printer Ink Costs

2010-07-09

Offices need to do whatever they can to scale back their costs, especially in a recession. One of the first places that many offices turn to when looking for budget cuts is computer technology. After all, computers, printers, scanners, and other hardware are often the most expensive items in an office. However, printer ink is often the biggest regular cost for an office, and by improving habits and picking out printer ink cartridges carefully, many offices can greatly reduce the cost of an office printer.

This starts with a quick look at the basics of printer ink conservation. Many companies use an office printer that uses black and white printer ink cartridges exclusively, but most workers have access to at least one color printer. In order to avoid the use of color printer ink cartridges (which cost much less than black and white cartridges), set each printer's default settings to "grayscale." You should also consider using Draft settings, which use less ink. Documents printed on Draft generally look identical to those printed at higher quality settings, depending on the printer. Every worker in an office should also get used to the "print preview" option, which can greatly conserve ink by eliminating accidental prints. Encourage conservation of printer ink cartridges and paper throughout an office, and put guidelines into place to lower the work load for your office printer.

You should also make sure that you aren't overpaying for printer ink cartridges. If you wait to buy ink until the office printer runs out, or if you frequent big box stores, you're probably putting way too much time and money into ink. Look online and compare ink prices at a few websites before deciding on one. If your office uses a lot of ink, it's well worth your time to do some minor research. Consider looking for printer ink coupons online, or even using a refillable ink kit. Always buy several ink cartridges at a time. However, you should be careful not to buy too many, as it is possible for ink to expire (this usually takes several months to a year, however). Read customer reviews of various websites to make sure that you're getting high quality ink.

Once an office begins using printer ink more efficiently and buying ink responsibly, it's easy to stay on task and keep printer ink costs at a minimum. Every office should consider taking steps to reduce printer ink usage and reduce costs--even if the office has a sizable computer budget, there's no sense in wasting money on expensive printer ink cartridges.