This brochure will introduce students to good printing practices that can save time, reduce costs, and conserve our natural resources.

Two types of printing are available in the General Access Computer Labs, dot matrix and laser. Because laser printing accounts for the majority of the printing in the labs, we will focus on laser printing.

If we can reduce the amount of laser printing, we would save time printing. It would benefit everyone in the labs if we didnt have to wait to print because the system is backed up with print jobs.

If we can reduce the amount of laser printing, we would reduce the expense of printing. Laser printers are costly to operate and maintain. Good printing practices will save money, and those savings could be used for other lab improvements.

If we can reduce the amount of laser printing, we would conserve our natural resources. Good printing practices will put less of a strain on the environment. Please dont waste paper or toner.

The rest of this brochure will discuss special printing considerations that can save everyone time, money, and resources.

The laser printers in the labs have duplexing units and, by default, will print on both sides of the paper. This measure was put in place to save paper. Single sided printing is still an option, but you must manually change the printer settings.

Follow these directions for single-sided printing.

1. When you are ready to print, click on "File" and "Print". The "Print" dialog box will open.

2. Click on the "Properties" button. The print queue properties dialog box will open.

3. Under "Document Options" unselect "Print on Both Sides"

4. Click on "OK" and "OK"

Most web pages are not printer friendly and waste a lot of paper and toner if they are printed from the browser.

Some web pages offer a "Printer Friendly" option that reformats the page to fit on regular 8½ x 11 paper, but you still may end up printing far more than you need.

A better method of printing would be to copy the portion of the web page(s) you need, paste them into a Word document, and print the Word document. This way you avoid printing what you dont need. You can also save the document for future reference.

Copying web content and pasting it into a Word document is easy. Follow these directions.

1. Highlight the portion of the web page you want by dragging the mouse pointer across the section, or click on "Edit" and "Select All".

2. Copy the highlighted section by clicking on "Edit" and "Copy".

3. Switch to Microsoft Word and open a new document.

4. Paste the copied portion in Word by clicking on "Edit" and "Paste"

5. Delete all unwanted content from the document.

6. Make other formatting adjustments to reduce the total pages, such as reducing the font and margins, creating columns, and so on.

7. Print the document.

This method is also very useful for combining multiple web pages into a single document.

Are you the type of person who needs to read drafts on paper? Help the environment by setting the printer to "Save Toner" mode for your drafts. This mode uses half the toner the normal print setting uses.

To get to this feature, go to the "Properties" function on your Print Screen. Select the tab for Print Quality and choose "Save Toner". This substantially reduces the number of toner cartridges and toner that ends up in landfills, and saves money by making the toner cartridges last longer.

PowerPoint presentations are usually large files that contain many graphics, and as a result, printing these presentations can put a considerable load on your computer and the network printing services.

By default, PowerPoint prints one slide per page. Each slide fills the entire page and includes all the graphics including the background. This can be very wasteful.

Follow these directions to Print 2 or more PowerPoint Slides to a page.

1. In your PowerPoint presentation click on "File" and "Print". The "Print" dialog box will open.

2. Select "Handouts" from the "Print what" pull-down menu near the bottom of the Print window. The "Handouts" section will light up.

3. Select the number of slides per page. We recommend 3 or more slides per page.

4. Select "Grayscale" to optimize the printout for the black and white lasers.

5. Click on OK

Other considerations include using a white background to save on toner.