You save time, the environment and your wallet with these programs that support the printing process. Some of these tools even make it a competition and show you detailed results of your savings.
Where is that paperless office? The printer is still an important part of almost every office and can also be found in most people’s homes. Printers eat paper and ink or toner, but there are a few smart tricks and tools to reduce that consumption.
For example, some tools remove unnecessary elements from pages, such as the banners. Pro-tip: you can also use the reading mode for that, a standard feature in a browser such as Firefox, and then print this simplified version without sidebars and commercials. That is not as extensive as, for example, FinePrint, but it is a simple trick. Here are a few tools that will save you printing costs.
Inksaver
Inksaver is software that was made for it, as the name suggests, to save as much ink as possible. He looks algorithmically at the most efficient way to print documents, even when high resolutions are involved, for example. You can set how far it should go, so that you have fine control over very sparingly printed documents for home use and a print that is closer to the original if you want to send a document by post.
FinePrint
With the FinePrint tool you can determine more firmly how your printer behaves, for example by forcing it to lighten dark content to save ink, remove blank pages from print jobs, remove unwanted images from the print and more. The software costs € 46.50 and a free trial is available.
PDF Maker of 7-PDF
This tool is not designed to save ink, but it does. With PDF Maker you can set when a document is converted to PDF that this happens at a certain resolution. Reduce the number of dots per inch (DPI) to lower the resolution and you can go as deep as 75 DPI (a standard resolution is around 300, often higher with images).
Paint.net
Another program that can save your printer is the extensive graphical open source package Paint.net. Almost as extensive as Photoshop, this is a favorite among graphic hobbyists with a more limited budget; the software is free. You can adjust the resolution of images extensively and in detail here to ensure that the printer is not loaded so heavily.
