If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

Although paper consumption rates have been lowering since 1999 the rate of paper used by businesses everyday remains at a staggering rate. So what can these businesses do to reduce the amount of paper they use and then have to destroy? Here are a few tips that can have you and your company reducing consumption painlessly.

• Do Away With Memos: Most people are familiar with the internet at this point and many businesses have some sort of interface that allows their employees to e-mail. Utilize this to reduce the amount of paper wasted on printing up memos and other notes on the job. E-mail is a much quicker way of communicating in any case. Rather than printing off e-mails forward them to other workers.

• Fax Smart: Think before you fax something off. There are many times you’d save paper and time if you e-mailed instead. If you must fax something it’s much better if you can use an outbound/inbound e-mail to fax service.

• Use All-in-One Printers: All-in-one printers don’t cost nearly as much as they used to, and the investment is worth it. The ink and paper you’ll save with this format will add up pretty quickly. Newer models also come with options like Wi-Fi, touch-screens and Bluetooth.

• Use Your Scanner: Scanning your documents into the computer means that they can be e-mailed or saved to a disk for easy retrieval, evading paper use after you’ve gotten the initial text document.

It can take some getting used to but trust me making these changes will be well worth the effort!

We can keep on printing and printing all we want, but sometimes we should also consider the quality of our prints, especially when printing pictures and other images. Here are some things to consider to ensure the quality of your prints.

The first thing you should look for in the printer is its compatibility with the paper. What paper types is it compatible with? Is it compatible with only regular paper? How about thermal paper and photo paper? Looking at the different paper types can help determine the quality of the prints, since this is where you’re going to print your file on after all.

The second thing to consider is to look at your printer type. Prints on color inkjet printers generally take a long time to dry, so be especially careful when printing from this type of printer. There is a small chance of smearing the ink, thereby ruining an otherwise impeccable print of a most memorable life event.

Laser printers may be better to use since it is a lot more accurate and the ink dries faster compared to their inkjet counterparts. Considering this advantage, laser printers may seem to be a better choice, but there is a trade-off – laser prints tend to be pricier for home users, since a laser printer can cost at least twice as much as an inkjet printer. Home users on a tight budget may want to stick to an inkjet printer. For those who want professional quality prints, though, upgrading to a laser printer should be considered.

Ensuring quality prints really boils down to two main things — paper type and printer type. Both have a direct impact on how the prints will come out since both ink and paper are the main determinants of print output quality.

The availability of electronic study materials seems to have an unexpected side effect, at least in the case of Binghamton University in upstate New York. This was discussed in a news item on Pipe Dream, the student-run newspaper of Binghamton University.

Apparently, some school officials are worried about the printing habits of students. BU provides students with a weekly printing quota that is already included in their tuition. Recently, this allocation was changed from a page limit to a monetary limit. The system works by providing students with a basic amount worth of printing at the start of the semester. This is then incremented by $2 every week thereafter, with printing computed at 5 cents per page.

Students who go beyond their allocation for the week can still print, charging the extra pages to their BUC$ card. The University’s Academic Computing Services Director, James L. Wolf, was quoted in the article as saying that their “income from overflow printing in the past year was three times more than the previous year”.

Who would say “No” to extra income? But then again, that income indicates increased printing volume. This semester, the University reportedly used 10% more paper than what they used the previous fall.

And this is despite the fact that about half of printing is being done on duplex printers which were installed the previous year.

Concern for printing and paper use is evident in students as well as school officials, however, which is a good sign. There are student groups such as the New York Public Interest Research Group, Engineers without Borders and Student Environmental Action Coalition that are reportedly looking for ways to raise awareness on campus regarding the school’s printing statistics and provide students and faculty members with other alternatives to excessive printing.

The library is also pitching in, coming up with the slogan “What goes online, stays online,” and investing in electronic databases of academic journals.

Every resident of the United States over the past couple hundred years or so would have experienced having to fill out the U.S. Census. As 2009 draws to a close, preparations are already under way for conducting the 2010 U.S. Census. According to U.S. Census Bureau, printing of next year’s set of questionnaires has already begun, and there are a few changes that are worth mentioning.

For one, the 2010 questionnaire will be shorter than what you have probably been used to over the years; according to the U.S. Census, it is one of the shortest questionnaires that will be handed out since the first census in 1790. There will only be 10 questions for each residential address to answer, and will only take about 10 minutes to complete.

Despite its obvious brevity, though, the questionnaire will remain to be “a powerful tool that provides critical data,” according to Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves, as quoted in the press release.

In order to meet the projected demand of delivering more than 120 million questionnaires to residential addressees in the United States starting in the middle of March next year, the Census Bureau is reportedly printing more than a million and a half documents each day.

This is where the conduct of the 2010 census proves its eco-friendliness. With the shorter questionnaires, the Bureau stands to use up 30 percent less ink when compared to a questionnaire printed 10 years ago. That’s a significant amount of savings on printer ink alone! The questionnaires will also be printed using 30 percent recycled paper, doing another bit for the environment.

Another activity incorporated for the 2010 census is ensuring the quality of the address list that will be used to hand out the census questionnaires. Workers from the Census Bureau verified U.S. Postal Service and local government-provided address lists with the actual addresses on foot. This will ensure more efficient data collection as well as do away with wasted questionnaires.

2.65in x 1in is one of the most popular Avery label sizes going around. Each sheet of the labels contains 30 labels and one can use this label for the purposes of mailing and also addressing. This type of Avery label is also known as the white label and its popularity is such that many other label manufacturers have copied its size and configuration.

The Avery labels are very commonly used as they can be formatted very easily and what’s more important is that they stick well. One can use them for return addresses as well as integrate the logo of the company on them. Moreover, you could also use them as printing labels. You could print messages on them and stick them on a file or an envelope for purposes of identification.

An Avery label with the product code Avery 5195 is also a popular make and it is available in a rectangular easy-to-peel format.

For full version of this article, please visit “Popular Avery Label Sizes and Uses of Avery Labels“.