HOWTO: Save Money on Printing Costs - Comments Page 1

I have a Cannon printer. I bought Office Max cartridges when we purchased the printer. When I used the B&W replacement cartridge, it didn't register that there was ink in the cartridge. But it did continue to print but I kept getting messages that I was out of black ink. When the original color cartridge went out, it not only would not register that it had ink, but it refused to print. I took it back to Office Max. They replaced the cartridge (their brand) and the second one would work either.

I returned to the store with the second cartridge that didn't work and they said they would replace it until I found one that did. However the 5 mile trip to Office Max wasn't worth it. I returned the both the black Office Max cartridge that I hadn't used yet and the color one. I purchased the Cannon brand name and the difference in the price was $3.00!!!! I'd rather pay the $3 than fuss with cartridge that don't work. I had used one color and two Black cartridge in the two years I had the printer. Office Max was wonderful about returning the cartridges and very helpful.

There is something about an Epson cartridge that makes it hard to refill. I have taken my spent Epson 78 cartridges to the local guy who refills them and he says that he cannot do them. The computer chip on them is difficult to reprogram.

As a result, I have the Epson that gets OEM ink and a couple of HP printers that I use for most things because they are easy to refill.

If you are thinking about replacing a printer and ink cost is a concern, check with your local vendor before you buy to make sure he can refill the cartridge.

As a New Hampshire granite-scrabbling pinch-penny, I take to heart all thoughts on spending less.
When my Brother HL1440 laser printer's blinking lights told me it was low on toner, I removed the cartridge, shook it, and replaced it. It stopped blinking, and is still printing after dozens of pages! When it tells me the toner is all gone, I'll shake it again. Might work.

I now have a Canon PIXMA MG5450 all-in-one printer, the results of which are very good. BUT it seems the worst waste of ink happens without me having to print anything: it's when the printer cleans the heads and over which I have no control.

I have only printed a few pages and already the magenta and cyan cartidges are about 2/3 used because, it appears, it takes ages to prepare to print during which I can hear all sorts of things happening inside the cabinet and it makes me shudder to think of all the ink being used for cleaning purposes.

I spent a long time searching for a dedicated printer to replace my old HP Deskjet, but they are now nearly all all-in-ones and as I already own an excellent Epson scanner, I really didn't need another one.

When I set up a printer (usually inkjet), I set it as black and white - double sided for my default one. I then create several other "printers". One as Color - double sided, another as Color - single sided for when large graphics may be needed and in my case, a color 4x6 "best photo". I am using an Epson Artisan 810.

I have used this method for a number of friends and they like the idea.

I have been using 4inkjets and 123Inkjets ever since I went to buy OEM printer ink. Even at Costco the sticker shock was too much to bear. I get fast delivery, free shipping and they are just as good as the name brand and the price is a fraction of the cost of the name brand.Thank goodness for companies like these or I would never be able to afford printing anything!

I sometimes find myself reprinting pages for various reasons. When I do, I save the wasted copies if there is a blank side. I reuse the backside of these for printing a variety of print jobs where it doesn't matter if the other side is blank.

Hi Bob, "the cost of brand-name printer ink cartridges has always been outrageous... The dirty little secret of the printer industry is that they make far more profit from the consumable inks than they do on the printer itself."
This string of beautiful words is music to my ears, especially the word "outrageous". My question, why do we put up with this disgusting profiteering?
We have a small one-man business (South Africa) near my home, busy as a bee refilling or selling locally made cartridges which I have been using for years at a great saving, with excellent print quality, but my Canon MX410 shows "empty" even when I install a full cartridge - another filthy dirty trick.
Thanks for the excellent article. You always deliver the goods - often at the expense of your popularity in certain circles! Greetings from SA.

I've been a consultant in ink jet technical research for a long, long time, and I can assure you that most after market ink jet cartridges are not equal in quality to most OEM products. If you don't care about the lifetime of your prints (that is, you're printing something that will be discarded in a few months), most after market cartridges will be just fine. But for pictures or documents you want to save, buy the OEM product.

It is really too bad that Kodak chose to leave the home ink jet market. Unlike other companies, their business model was to sell the printer at a profit, but price the replacement cartridges at a fair price. They used long lasting pigmented inks that could indeed last for generations. And after all, you buy the printer once, but replacement ink over and over again.

My assertions are backed up by scientific testing in both independent, university, and corporate labs which looked at thermal (heat), light, humidity, and pollutants and their effects on real world prints.

Refilling carts is great, but Epson and HP are not only difficult but often don't work after refilling. Brother printers are the best for refilling carts, simple and they work. Refilling costs about 15-20% of buying new carts.

If I want to make up prints of a photo, I won't spend the money on ink. It is to expensive. I upload the pictures to a place like Walgreens, Walmart or CVS. They tell me when they will be ready, so I just drive over & pick them up. In the long run, I find it alot cheaper. Quite often they have sales and the quality of the picture is better. If someone wants specific pictures, I can upload them to a location close to where they live. It works out very well.

Bob, I endorse heartily your suggestion to print to file (in a commonly used format for the file type) rather than to paper. I use a file program to keep my print-to-file stuff organized. It was hard to break my habit of printing out most everything, but now I have it on file and saved to an appropriate location for future reference. When I was in business, we also converted most of our forms to on-line fillable PDF forms. We could email them to the customer and receive them back filled in thus making them much easier to read. I also found that my need for a color printer was almost nil, so now I have a black ink only inexpensive (great quality) laser printer.

I found this week's article that you wrote up for us, to be particularly helpful. :)

For example, I never would have thought that changing the size of the font when typing, would help save on using ink and printing costs, too. That is a really great idea that is so easy to do.

Consumer Reports recently had an article about how many inkjet printers waste a goodly amount of ink even when the printer is just sitting. The "cleaning" they do either before a job or during various idle times can be hazardous to one's budget. Some printers reputedly will burn through a good $100 worth of ink a year this way. They listed one Brother printer that wasted $0, so it can be done. I've gone to using a couple of Brother laser printers (with auto duplex) that CR claims run about 1.5 cents per copy, and that's with OEM cartridges. Yes I'm a cheapo.

I have an inkjet printer for printing when I need colour and a laser printer for black and white. Yes the initial cost is more but the savings are there for printing.
My HP colour printer was new when Windows XP was the latest and greatest so getting a driver for Windows 7 took a little effort. My laser printer is about 3 years old but it gets a lot more use. I use refilled ink cartridges to save more cash and the place I get my ink cartridges refilled no longer refills toner cartridges but has after-market ones which are the cheapest I've found.

Hello -- Just a comment on saving ink while printing. I use a program from http://inksaver.com. I have been using it for several years and thoroughly endorse it.

Great product!

So Bob, do you currently use Preton Saver yourself?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I used it for several months, to see if it worked as advertised. But I print so little, I decided not to keep it installed. I still think it's a very good product for those who print on a daily basis.

Try using the "Green Cloud Printer".

Thanks for the article very informative

I like your ideas for how ink – and money – can be saved at the typing stage. I didn't know that about Ariel. Some fonts have a 'light' option, too. I would add that choice of font colour can also make a difference. Try using a dark grey instead of black, especially for thick lines (in a table, for example) and bold headings. I also use a grey for headers and footers: it saves ink and looks nice, too.