Looking for new ways to conserve ink and save money? Besides buying compatible ink cartridges or printing in draft mode, a 2009 study from Printer.com suggests that you can save ink by choosing the right font. The test uses Arial as the default popular font, and then compares Arial’s ink costs with 9 other fonts. Two printers are used – the Canon PIXMA MP210 to represent consumer printers with lower print volumes, and the Brother HL-2140 to represent business printers with higher print volumes.
According to the test, the most budget-friendly font is Century Gothic, which is nearly 31% less expensive than Arial. The other four fonts that beat out Arial are Ecofont, Times Roman, Calibri, and Verdana. I checked my version of Microsoft Word, and found that I already had Century Gothic, Times Roman, and Verdana. You need to get Ecofont off the web, and Calibri is apparently the default font in versions of Microsoft Word that are newer than mine.
Of course, you may have a different printer than the ones used in the test, and the way a font looks will often take precedence over how “wasteful” it may be. But at least the study offers some actual stats to think about. To see how your favorite font did, and to learn more about the test methodology, check out the chart and analysis.
(Story via abc15.com; Photo via Morguefile)
