Save Money on Inkjet Cartridges: The Ultimate Guide

Lasers to the Rescue!

If you print a lot of monochrome documents, get an inexpensive laser printer.

Wait a minute: The answer to saving money on inkjet ink is to buy a second printer? Indeed, depending on your printing habits, that could be the best ink- and money-saving move you could make.

That’s because one of the keys to printing cost-effectively is to pay careful attention to the cost per page for the printer you’re currently using, in light of the ways you typically print. The two main types of personal printer on the market today are inkjets and lasers, with lasers coming in monochrome-only and colour varieties. The very lowest-end inkjets tend to be a bit cheaper in initial purchase price than entry-level lasers (the cheapest of which are always monochrome-only). This pricing dynamic is what leads some users to buy an inkjet without looking further.

Inkjets are at an inherent disadvantage, however, in terms of long-run costs. Compare any given tier of these two types of printers—budget laser versus budget inkjet, midrange personal laser versus midrange inkjet—and it’s a sure bet that the cost per printed page will be higher for the inkjet, usually significantly so. Therefore, if you do a lot of the kind of printing that lasers excel at (text and simple business graphics); you may be better off investing in an inexpensive, toner-fuelled laser printer to reduce your reliance on costly inkjet ink.

We can think of two scenarios in which this makes sense. First, if you print large volumes of monochrome text, a laser will be considerably cheaper per page and almost invariably give you higher-quality, faster prints. Second, if you print a lot of business graphics or other relatively uncomplicated colour images for which top quality is not important, you’re probably spending a lot of money on inkjet output that might be equally met by a low-end colour laser.

In the case of colour lasers, you do need to bear in mind the issue of print quality. For text output, both types of lasers excel. For photo prints, however, even the best colour lasers simply can’t touch the image quality of a middling-capable inkjet printer used with the proper photo paper.

Use draft quality for disposable printouts.

Just about every printer these days has a draft mode, and activating it will extend the life of your ink cartridges significantly. Plus, an added bonus: Your documents and images will print faster. You won’t want to use the mode when printing photos you plan to frame or keep, but for many other printing tasks, draft will suffice. The ink won’t look as dark, but you’ll probably barely notice the difference. (And when you realize how much longer your ink cartridges last, you may stop seeing the difference altogether!)

Enabling draft mode is simple. When you’re ready to print, click File > Print in the application you’re printing from. When the Print dialog box pops up, click Properties, then look for a box labelled “print quality,” or something similar. Select whatever option is the opposite of “best quality”; it may be called “fast printing,” “draft,” or something else. Whatever it’s called, it will save you money on ink, and that’s why you’re here.

You can also set your PC to print in draft mode in all applications unless you specify otherwise. In Windows XP, go to Start > Control Panel > Printers and Faxes, right-click on your printer, select Properties, and hit the Printing Preferences button. A dialog box specific to your printer should appear. Look for the draft mode or “fast printing” option among the various tabs, activate it, and hit OK. Further prints should now default to draft; reverse this process to print in high quality.