For many businesses, the black-and-white printer is a staple piece of office equipment—a great cost- and time-saver. From every day printing to larger projects, the black-and-white printer is designed to handle all of your business printing needs. If you’ve invested in a monochrome printer, check out the following tips to make the most of this office technology workhorse.
● Make it your default – Place the printer in a location convenient for all employees who use it, and make it the default printer for all network-connected computers and devices. Regular jobs will get efficient treatment, and unexpected color use (found by employing “rich black” when printing black text) is eliminated.
● Understand its capabilities – Does your printer have a duplex (two-sided) printing option? Can it print multiple pages per sheet? Is it flexible about paper sizes? Get to know your printer’s features, so you can take advantage of them.
● Look at your document design – In addition to how you print, consider what you print. Only you can decide what is best for your business, but for letters, statements, invoices, and forms, too often the high price of a splash of color isn’t worth it. Design for black-and-white-only printing so your documents still look sharp, not sloppy.
● Maximize your content-to-page ratio – Teach your staff to become master manipulators of a document’s format, including font size, line spacing, and margins. It’s often possible to fit 50 percent more content on a page with just a few tweaks.
● Choose default print quality settings – Your ink will last longer if your typical daily printing is produced with “fast print” or “draft print” options. Save the high-dpi for when quality really matters. It also helps to remember that in some cases, different paper can provide better quality.
● Reconsider images – Documents with pictures or graphics are often printed in color, but make sure color is really needed before changing from your black-and-white default. Today’s monochrome printers can produce images of newspaper quality or better, which works for most purposes.
● Use in-program settings – If you are frustrated by awkward rendering of full-color Microsoft Word or Power Point presentations, go to View > Grayscale to choose a toner-friendly black-and-white color scheme.
If your company is like most, you rely on your black-and-white printer every day. Make the most of this asset by instituting cost-saving and quality-improving defaults. Doing so will instill a culture of smart printing in your office for years to come. For help optimizing your printing strategy, contact Monster Technology on Reno today!