Tuesday Tips: How to Reduce Your Office Printing Costs

Printing is something most office workers do on a regular basis, perhaps without thinking of the resulting cost to the company. Sending out staff bulletins with information about how to reduce printing-related costs is a good first step when you are trying to combat waste, but did you know there is another, more powerful step you can take? It involves customized print management.

Personalized Settings for Printer Usage

Your employees may not realize that documents printed in color typically cost much more than black-and-whites. Those who do know may forget to change their settings when appropriate, for example, turning off color and switching to two-sided before printing an email. Check with your managed print services specialist to see if you can create presets for printing from certain programs, for specific users or company-wide. You may, for example, be able to configure your printer to require a passcode, unique to each user, before accepting a job. You should also be able to designate which user has access to which printer features and settings, using a print management system interface.

Custom Defaults

In addition to setting up parameters for individual users, you can save commonly-used print settings as defaults. This means your employees will not have to remember complicated combinations of feature choices for standard reports and other company documents.

Customized printer settings can make life easier for every user. Added benefits for the company include less waste and potentially lower costs.