Pennywise: Printing for Less

Remember all those predictions of a paperless future?

I'm still waiting.

Meantime, I just came across an article in the October issue of Consumer Reports Money Adviser that has this stunning little fact: you get up to 40 more pages out of an ink cartridge if you only use Times Roman font instead of all the others.

And I'm not talking about the supercool ones, either. Just using plain-vanilla Verdana will give you the lowest yield of any fonts tested, with Tahoma and Arial a close second.

Who knew serifs could be so slimming?

CR's other tips for the cheap at heart:

• Go ahead and ignore low-ink warnings until you're really completely out,
• Switch to 'draft' or 'fast' mode for most printing.
• Get rid of the basically blank pages at the ends of Web sites by downloading a program from GreenPrint or get add-ons from HP (search for 'web-page printing') and Canon (sorry, these are for PCs only).

And don't forget to turn the printer off when you're done.

[image via Maximedia]