Cartridges and toners are undoubtedly the most expensive component, in the long run, when we use any printer: every tot of sheets we will have to change the cartridge or toner in order to continue printing. But if we don't have any spare parts available and the printer reports a very low ink level, what can we do "> Let's not expect miracles: with the methods we're going to see we will be able to recover about 5% more ink, i.e. by eye 10 -15 extra sheets (but a lot depends on the printer model and the type of ink used). READ ALSO -> Best WiFi multifunction printers to buy
Quick Print Options
Windows offers a fast ink-saving printing system that can be activated directly during the printing process.To enable it, we open any document to be printed within the program in use (for example Word, Excel or LibreOffice), click on the CTRL + P keys or open the menu at the top left File -> Print and, in the window that we will see it appear, make sure that the printer to be used is selected and finally click on Printer Properties .
From this window we select Monochrome as color, set Draft as print quality and click Advanced . Depending on the printer model in use, we will have various options to configure the print process: we will have to activate (if possible) the options Save ink, Fast print or Print only in black and white . At the end of the configurations, click OK to close all the windows and start the printing process.
On some programs, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, we can also activate an integrated ink saving system, so as to obtain faster prints and with a high ink consumption. To take advantage of this system, open any PDF document with the Acrobat Reader program, press the CTRL + P keys or click on the printer symbol at the top and, in the window that we will see appear in the center of the screen, select the printer we intend to use and add the check mark on the items Print in grayscale (black and white) and Save ink / toner .
As soon as we are ready, click on Print at the bottom to start the process.
With these two items active, printing will be very fast and a special printing method patented by Adobe will be used which allows you to save a lot of ink, at the expense of quality (which will obviously be very low).
Even when we print from a browser we can get a small ink saving by selecting black and white printing: on Chrome just press the CTRL + P keys and select the Black and White item in the Color field to be able to save the cartridges or toner of the color.
Obviously the other programs will also have dedicated print menus, it is up to us to activate the best items from time to time, similar to those shown, in order to print faster and consume less ink.
Programs for printers
Instead of applying the changes to each program, we can configure the printer driver on the PC so that it immediately applies good ink savings and maximizes printing speed.First of all we install the management programs for the printers, downloading them from the CDs supplied with the printer or downloading them from the official sites:
- HP
- Epson
- Canon
- Brother
- Xerox
- Samsung
Once the driver and the updated management software have been obtained, we open the Start menu at the bottom left, look for the Printers and scanners item, select the printer to be used and finally go to the Manage -> Printing preferences path.
This will open a page very similar to that seen to configure the printing of the single programs, in which we will have to select Draft quality and Monochrome color.
If our printer has advanced options, we can configure it by clicking on Printer Properties -> Preferences -> Advanced .
Alternatively, we can use management programs and apps specific to the model of printer in use: for example, on HP printers we can download the HP Smart app, so that we can manage and configure the printer in an optimal way.
Other methods to save ink
If these methods have not saved you ink, we can try one of the other methods described in the various guides that we have created on the site.
For example we can use a particular font that reduces ink and toner consumption without compromising the quality of the characters; we talked about it in the following guide -> Which Fonts to save on printing documents .
If instead we want to save both paper and ink, we can print multiple pages on a single sheet or enable duplexing, as we saw in the guide here -> Print multiple pages on single sheet or duplex .
If the printer is too slow to print even with the settings we have shown you, perhaps it is appropriate to change it with a faster printer, such as those recommended here -> What are the Fastest Printers .
In another complete guide we have seen many other good tips to print faster and consume less ink, so I refer you to the reading at the link available below.
READ ALSO -> Save ink and printer cartridges
