Friday, June 1, 2012

Double-Sided Printing (Duh!)

Most modern laser printers, such as this HP1320, have double-sided printing capabilities.   Setting your printer preferences to "double-sided" will slow down printing, but cut your paper usage in half.

As I noted in another posting, Paper is Dying.   Very few of my customers want "hard copies" anymore, and most communicate by e-mail with .pdf attachments for documents.  With large, dual-screen displays, there is no need to print out documents anymore, really.

But there are a few clients who still use paper, including one I am doing a search report for today.   And I was alarmed to see I was actually running out of paper, as I haven't bought any in over a year.

I wanted to get the report out in today's mail, but there was not enough paper to print all the Patent References.   Then it struck me.  Duh!  Use two-sided printing!

Most modern laser-printers can print on both sides of a piece of paper.  It prints one side, spits out the paper, then sucks it back in, and then prints on the other side.  It takes a little longer to do, but it cuts paper usage in half.

Now, granted, there are some documents you don't want to print on both sides - such as business letters (remember those?).   But for the most part, the few things you do print anymore, can be printed on double-side - your Mapquest directions, or whatever.

It seems like a simple thing, but it does cut consumption in half.   And in any endeavor, saving 50% is a sizable reduction.