Leavin Train

Snap Switch

Save Ink Cartridges - Switch to Monochrome

As with most people, it’s likely that you don’t pay much attention to the peripherals surrounding your computer, especially your printer.

Once you’ve connected your nice new all in one device and purchased fully filled ink cartridges (hopefully from www.accentyourpc.co.uk!), you probably do little else with regard to configuration, save for the driver installation, opting for the manufacturers standard settings and printing in colour mode by default.

The truth is, if you do this, you’re missing a trick. Think about it. How often do you need to print pages out in colour?

If you’re in business, the only colour on correspondence is usually the company logo, normally included on a pre-printed letter head. So accordingly, you’ll be printing in monochrome for the majority of the time.

For home users, a similar thing applies. The need for colour printing at home is normally limited to creating hard copies of your digital snaps for framing or perhaps the odd poster.

So what happens when you want to take a hard copy of a really informative web article or print the details of your next holiday flight? You got it, it comes out in colour unless you specifically tell the printer to do it differently.

We all know that colour ink cartridges are more expensive than black ones, so constantly printing in colour for every draft copy you produce is costing you money, and more than you might think.

In fact, using your printer in its default mode could cost you up to 8 times more per page than monochrome printing alone. This translates to quite a saving on your ink cartridges, no matter how much you print.

So how do we make the switch? Its simple really. Take a look at our simple guide below and you’ll be saving money in no time.

Default your printer to monochrome (Windows XP)

1. In Windows, navigate to Start -> Printers and Faxes

2. Identify your printer from the list and Right click on it.

3. Select Printing Preferences.

4. Find the reference to Color (possibly under Paper/Quality) and change it to “Black” or “Mono”. The exact placement of this option will vary depending on the printer but it should be fairly obvious.

5. Click Apply and then OK.

When you really need to print in colour, just use the Print menu from the relevant application and alter the Color property back to "Color". This setting will then only last as long as the current print job before defaulting back to monochrome.

That’s all there is to it. Now, sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that you’ve just maximized your printing economy even further.

Don’t forget, when your cartridges do run out, visit www.accentyourpc.co.uk for the best deals on ink cartridges and laser toner!

Stay tuned for our next article on printer optimization!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Trains. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.