The rise of the ‘paperless office’ has been predicted since the early 1960s, but the need to make paper copies has hardly diminished over the intervening 50 years. As Ben Franklin famously said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” This philosophy is certainly relevant when using your inkjet or laser printer.

According to testing, using the Verdana font produces 36% fewer text-based print outs than using Times New Roman.

For comparison, using a 12pt (point) font size, 10 printed pages using Times New Roman costs around 23p in ink, compared that to Verdana which costs 36p. ​If you print 500 pages a year that is an ink saving of £6.50.

A well known laser printer is rated at 370W and prints 18 pages per minute. Printing for 5 mins per day, around 90 pages, will use just 11.25kWh of electricity, costing £1.58 per year. An equivalent inkjet printer will use even less, 1.3 kWh only costing 18p for the same printing. These numbers are very small, so remember the biggest savings come from reduced ink and paper usage.

The cheapest 80gsm copier paper costs around £2 for 500 sheets, whilst the cheapest slightly heavier 100gsm paper costs upwards of £7 for 500 sheets. If you buy 5 reams (2,500 sheets) per year you can save £25, so buy the lighter weight!

Don’t print in colour unless absolutely necessary, save money by switching the print mode to high speed black and white​​.

Multifunction printers (also called all-in-one printers) combine a printer, scanner and copier into a single device. Having all these functions in one unit not only saves space, but can also be more affordable than buying separate individual devices.

If buying new, buy an inkjet printer with low cost, high volume refillable ink tanks. These can last for 2 years or up to 6,500 colour sheets!

Ink and toner supplied by the original equipment manufacturer (or ‘OEM’) tends to be the most expensive. You don’t have to buy it!