WHO relies on their home printer? Who has a love-hate relationship with their
at-home printer? It’s a modern day conundrum.
These days it’s par for the course to have a printer at home if you want to be able to print out those all-important documents or photos. With increasing numbers of people also working from home, many are suddenly required to add ‘printer specialist’ to their job titles, which can be overwhelming. When working alone there are obviously less opportunities to run print questions past the office IT guru, and therefore we get more and more enquiries from customers asking for advice. So without further ado, here are Copyco’s Top Five Tips for Home Printing:
1) Give your printer a happy home.
Extend the life span of your printer. Please don’t put it near a heater, or an air conditioner for that matter. Both inkjets and toners are sensitive to temperature and will be affected. Definitely don’t keep your printer somewhere that your two year old is going to be able to shove Rice Wheels into the paper feed. Most printer incidents are preventable.
2) Support lines are free.
Is your machine printing with spots? Stripes? Making strange noises? We can definitely help with the simple stuff, but once it starts getting complex we need to send out one of our printer techs to assess the situation themselves. Although our specialists are the friendliest, smartest, most cost-efficient techs around, they still cost money. Manufacturers usually have a toll-free support line with specialists on-hand to walk you through the smaller issues before you commit to a full service call or even worse, start fiddling with the printer yourself, creating bigger issues.
3) Print with a cost-saving font.
We’re not being funny here but the right font can save you *a lot* on printing expenses. Instead of printing in 16 POINT BOLD, try printing in 10 point Arial font. Even better, download ‘Ecofont’, a free font that uses 20% less ink by placing small white circles within each character (find it at www.ecofont.com).
4) Tweak your printing preferences.
Another cost-saving tip - before you print, take a look at your Printer Preferences. From now on, ‘Draft’ and ‘Grayscale’ are your new best buddies. If you need to print your document for proof-reading purposes, select ‘document options’ to print multiple pages per sheet. If your printer has a duplex printing function (double sided printing) this can also save you money on paper.
5) You get what you pay for.
There are a lot of companies out there happy to sell $50.00 printers ‘on special’ to customers without a second thought as to how the customer will feel when they have to spend three times that amount on their first round of ink, which probably won’t last long. Whilst we have nothing against printer specials, it’s important to do your research. If you have to, spend a little more on a printer to get the RIGHT one that has the best functions to suit you and is economical to run. High yield, compatible inks or super-cheap original inks are often preferable for home printing. Not clear what your consumables costs are? Easy – call us for a breakdown and a list of recommendations tailored to your usage.
When it comes to printing, we *love* printers and all things CMYK but we are also very aware of the more challenging issues that come with them, and we are passionate about addressing these and providing easy-to-follow solutions to assist our customers in working through these. If you think you might need some printer advice we are always happy to chat, so feel free to call or email us. Don’t forget to subscribe to our email list for regular printing tips and tricks to improve your relationship with your printer.
Happy printing!
Copyco Australia
Office Print Supplies
P: 1800 220 420
(Australian residents only)