Printing is a significant expense for many businesses. Here are some tips and suggestions for reducing printing and paper waste and costs:

1.         Encourage digital file sharing across long distances. Allow those who will be receiving material to print their own copies.

2.         Use online meetings and presentations. This reduces the need for printed material at all.

3.         Check how much paper is in the recycle bin in each department. Research those areas with the most paper per person. It may be beneficial to research the worst offenders before implementing policy changes that inconvenience an entire organization.

4.         A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. However, inserting happy faces on every page or bold graphics that do not add value to the content add to the printing costs without improving sales.

5.         Use collaborative software. There is no need for printing a dozen copies for redlining to later be collected and turned into a final document.

6.         Invest in high speed printers. Allow those who need to print large jobs to request such the evening or morning before it is needed. The later the job can be started, the less likely a job will need to be redone when changes are made at the last minute.

7.         Minimize the use of bold face print and underlining in your documents. This saves ink and prevents reader overload.

8.         Limit the use of color in presentations. Color ink is more expensive than black ink. For example, limit color to cover pages and charts. Set default print settings in the organization to black and white so that color printing must be manually set. Limit the color selection to one print job only so that users cannot set their own default to color all the time.

9.         Limiting personal printing is a well known tactic to save on printing costs. Limiting copies of magazines or articles for distribution to those who may be interested is less known but can also save money.

10.       Choose reviewers carefully. If there is a 50-50 chance or greater that the document will be in the recycle bin before being read, do not give it to that person. Limiting copies of various documents for stakeholders saves both paper and time. In those cases where reviews of printed are necessary, refine the review process so that only one hard copy must be distributed to all stakeholders.