Hidden Print CostsOne of the hidden print costs to running your computer is the print process. As you know, there is a price to pay when you click on the print command or button, especially when a print job doesn’t come out right because you are out of ink in your cartridge. When you go to purchase a replacement ink cartridge, you cringe at the price. You probably thought you just replaced that cartridge a short time ago. Or you might be a little irate that just the blue is out on your printer, yet you have to purchase the whole color cartridge. How about finding that your little used ink cartridge is useless because you let it sit so long and it dried out? The fact is most of us shell out hundreds of dollars for the convenience of quick printing or printing off a quality picture at home. There are ways to reduce printing costs depending on the amount you print, quality required and convenience desired. Cost of PrintingWith a little research on the Internet you can find the hidden print costs of PC printing. These costs are usually stated in per page amounts. This number is calculated generically by taking the average amount of ink or toner a specific printer uses to print a test picture and text on standard paper. You can find printing cost comparisons on most Internet sites that sell printers.Keep in mind that the true cost of printing is a combination of the original cost of the printer, per page cost, the amount and type of printing that you do and the cost of the paper or medium that you are printing on. If you do very limited printing in either black and white or color and you currently use an inkjet printer, you will not see a great savings by changing your setup. If, however you have big print jobs, print color pictures or have a large group of people all using the same printer(s) you can take the following steps to reduce your printing costs over timeL: Cost Savings for Black and White Laser PrinterThis first step in saving on the cost of printing is to divide up your printing to black and white and color. If you do mostly black and white and some color you can cut the hidden print costs by purchasing an inexpensive black and white laser printer. The cost is relatively low at around $150.00 for one that will do about 20 to 24 pages per minute.With most new laser printers you will get a toner cartridge that will get you started. Generally, the cartridge that comes with the printer will not last as long as the next one you will replace it with. The cost per page for the black and white laser is very small compared to using an inkjet printer. Cost Savings for Inkjet PrinterWhen you have an inkjet printer set to print in color, most of them will use all of the colors to print black areas. This uses the color ink faster than needed. One trick that is useful with the color inkjet and black and white laser is to divide the printing on a project up between the printers.To help cut down on the hidden print costs when printing a project such as business cards that are designed using Microsoft Front Page or Print Master, save the project first, then take all of the color graphics out and print the remaining black and white on the black and white laser printer. Next, close without saving and open the project again. This time delete all of the black and white and print the color portion on the color inkjet printer. You can do the same method in your word processor by selecting all of the text and changing the color to white (don’t forget to save your document before you do this). Print out the color, close and open the document again, this time deleting the color portions to print black on the laser. If you need to print the project in the future, you can save each edit of the project to its own file marked color or black. The other advantage to this method besides price is that the laser printers usually do a much better job on printing the black portions, especially lettering. Cost Savings for Color Inkjet PrinterOn inkjet printers that print all of the colors for black (in color mode) you can save your color cartridges by changing the print mode to black and white when you don’t need the colors. This should change the printer to use only the separate black cartridge for black. A lot of newer printers will do this automatically for black areas on your printed piece. This helps reduce some of those hidden print costs.Cost Savings for Color Laser PrinterThere are hidden print costs for those who do high volume printing in both black and white and in color. This scenario is common in many businesses, large and small, and in households that have a lot of people using the printer or printers.In this case, the method of saving is by purchasing a color laser printer. The upfront cost is the highest of all of the printers starting around $300.00. After the toner runs out you will also go into sticker shock when replacing them. The savings comes in the long run as the cost per page for printing is at a fraction of the cost of inkjet printers. Another advantage to almost all color laser printers is that they use 4 separate cartridges for the color and black and white printing. When one color or the black runs out, you only have to replace that cartridge. If you already own a 3-in-1 printer, you can still save with the laser color printer and use the 3-in-1 for scanning and faxing. Warning!For both inkjet and laser printers you may think that you are saving money when you purchase aftermarket or refurbished cartridges. In most cases this is not true because you still have hidden print costs. You may pay less up-front, but most of these types of replacement cartridges will not last for as many printed pages driving the cost per page up, or they will leak requiring you to have your printer repaired.Hidden Print Costs for Printing PhotographsWhat a wonderful thing…the ability to print high quality photos right from your computer. You can even get a mini photo printer to take on your trips with you. Let’s be realistic, though, about what the hidden print costs are for the convenience in the photo printer. Basically, for any type of printing, higher quality is achieved by more ink being sprayed out in smaller dots on very expensive paper.Cost Savings for Printing PhotographsThe less expensive way for photo printing is to save those pictures on a CD ROM disk and go down to your local pharmacy, photo shop, chain store or anywhere else that has photo developing (you could use a USB memory stick to save them, but a lot of service centers haven’t caught up to that technology, yet). A 4X6 developed print averages between 26 and 36 cents, which is a good dollar or more, less expensive than you printing them. You also get a developed photo which should hold its image over time much better than a printed photo.
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