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How To Print Multiple Pages On One Sheet Of Paper & Be Eco-Friendly

Saikat Basu — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:31:41 +0000

The utility of printing multiple pages on a single sheet of paper cannot be overstated enough. Perhaps in lesser eco-conscious times, condensing your print jobs might not have collected any attention. But as we head off to battle with the forces of global warming and natural depletion, learning how to utilize each square inch of paper is a must if you want to collect brownie points with the green brigade.

Printing multiple pages on one sheet of paper has uses beyond saving paper and toner of course. For example, you can check out a large document’s layout, create handouts of slides, create little booklets, send out drafts, put cheat sheets on paper etc.

There are a few ways to print multiple pages on a sheet of paper. We will take a look at the most obvious one via Microsoft Word and then with the help of a free printing software.

Print Multiple Pages with Microsoft Word

MS Word (Screenshots are from MS Word 2007.) makes it real easy to print as many as 16 pages on one sheet of paper.

Click on the Office Button and select Print. Use the dropdowns under Zoom to select the number of pages per sheet.

Like any other print job you can set the size of the paper from the Scale to Paper Size dropdown. Zoom automatically scales the pages on the sheet without changing the layout or the formatting. Keep in mind that readability will depend on the number of pages you have set per sheet.

Print Multiple Pages with iPrint

iPrint 6 is a virtual printer driver and a 7MB download compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7. iPrint is a completely free printing management solution that does five important tasks for any print job –

iPrint lets you setup multiple pages (maximum of four)to be printed on a single sheet of paper. Pages are automatically scaled down and fitted on the sheet.
iPrint works for any document of any format.
iPrint scans your document and can delete empty pages (without content) with a single click.
iPrint enhances productivity by letting you group together print job requests from multiple applications into a single iPrint session. From there, unwanted pages are automatically removed and any additional changes can be made.
iPrint saves you tons of paper if you regularly print out reams of documents.

If we talk about iPrint as a virtual printer driver that may not allow you to print more than two or four pages on a single sheet but it has the added advantage of letting you delete unwanted pages from the printing job. If you consider readability, four pages on a single sheet is just about ideal. Let’s put it through a print job and see how it turns out.

iPrint installs as a virtual printer driver, so you can access it from any application that has a Print command. My screenshots show our PDF manual on MS Word – Writing Professional Reports & Documents.

Go to Print and select iPrint from the list of your Printers. Set the Print Range if you want to. You can also set it from within iPrint.

iPrint Preview displays the document in the standard one page per sheet format. Use the menu commands to select the option you want – a 2 page per sheet layout or a 4 page per sheet layout. You can use the slider at the bottom to zoom in and out for a better view.

Now, you can go through the pages and select the pages you want to delete. Use CTRL+Shift for selecting multiple pages. Deleted pages are highlighted in red.

You can manage your print jobs using the first three buttons on the menu. Clicking on Print sends the document to be printed.

The final touch is given by green button which when clicked shows a report on how much you have saved using iPrint.

The iPrint website says it can save you 30 – 60% on printing, paper and ink costs. That could translate into a few trees, and who knows perhaps a part of our planet too. Here are a few more printing solutions for the guy who wants to go green on his computer -

- 3 Easy Bookmarklets To Print Nice Looking Web Pages Without Craplets
- Save Paper By Formatting & Printing Your Files With Govert’s Imposition Tool
- Manage Printing Costs & Cut Paper Waste By Setting Up A Print Server with PaperCut

Do you think iPrint and printing apps of its ilk help to reduce waste and help us become more eco-friendly?

The Ultimate 5 Ways to Go Green on Your Computer

Brett Callow — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:30:47 +0000

Sorry Kermit, but you were wrong: it is easy being green. Well, maybe it isn’t so easy if you’re a frog, but it is if you’re a human and are looking to reduce the environmental impact of your computer ownership.

We’ve touched on several ways to be environmentally friendly:

- How To Calculate Your Ecological Footprint Before The Earth Day
- 5 Sites And Tips on How to Go Green and Save Money
- How To Save Printer Ink & Make It Last Longer
- 5 Ways To Reduce The Power Consumption Of Your Computer

But ultimately, here are the top five ways to make a difference.

When not in use, turn off the juice

Yup, the easiest way to save energy is to simply turn your computer off when it’s not being used, and the savings from doing so can be substantial. According to ComputersOff.ORG, simply turning your computer off at night or when it’s not being used can save as much energy as it takes:

to run a clock radio for 1,392 weeks
to make 9,280 bags of microwave popcorn
to wash 464 loads of washing
to use your blow dryer for 5,568 hours
to vacuum for 464 hours
to produce 3,480 plastic bags
to run your microwave 24 hours a day for a week
to boil your kettle for 24 hours a day for 268 days

It’s worth noting that in recent years it’s possible to buy a very green desktop energy efficient computer, if you have a newer system and use it with the power management features enabled (see below), your savings will probably be smaller. But every little helps, right?

Before moving on, let’s dispel a frequently heard myth: namely that turning your computer on and off regularly will cause it to wear out more quickly. This is not the case. Today’s computers are designed to last through in excess of 40,000 on/off cycles and, even if you turn your computer on and off several times a day, it’s unlikely that you’ll reach anywhere close to that number of cycles before your computer is retired.

Use power management

If you really can’t bear to completely switch off, then using power management options to put your computer into an energy-saving sleep mode when it’s not being used is the next best thing and will save almost as much electricity. When operating normally, a computer and LCD monitor will use between 100 and 300 watts of electricity – but this reduces to only 1 to 6 watts in sleep mode. Climate Savers Computing provide some recommended power management settings and instructions on how to configure those settings.

Extend the life of your current computer

If every computer was to remain in use for, say, an extra 12 months, then substantially fewer computers would need to be produced and substantially fewer resources would be used in manufacturing, packaging and shipping. Consequently, the longer you can delay the retirement of your computer, the better it is for the environment. There are a couple of ways you can do this, this first and easiest of which is to simply keep on using your current computer for longer. Add some RAM, a bigger hard disk or a better graphics card – get as much mileage out of your computer as you can before replacing it.

The second way to prolong the life of your computer is to make sure that it’s reused rather than scrapped. While it may not have enough horsepower to enable you to play to latest games, your old computer would almost certainly be appreciated by somebody who only wants to browse the web and email. So, sell it, or give it to a needy friend or relative, or use Google to find a local donation scheme – just don’t put it out with the garbage! Hint: before parting with your old computer, be sure to wipe the data (How To Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive).

Print smart

It takes resources to manufacture ink, ink cartridges and paper, so it makes sense to think about what and when you print.

There are a number of ways that you can print smarter:

Don’t print! Think before you print and only print what really needs to be printed. Do you really need a hard copy of that forwarded email joke? Reducing the amount that you print will save energy, ink, paper and may even help extend the life of your printer.
Print on both sides of the paper. This can cut your paper consumption by as much as 50% and, as an added bonus, you’ll use also less energy too when printing double-sided (according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the saving in energy costs may amount to as much as $170 during the life of the printer). If you need to print a substantial amount on a regular basis, consider buying a printer that supports automatic double-sided printing as this will avoid the need for manual-feeding (which is fine if you only print something once in a while, but not so fine if you print multiple times per day).
Cut out waste. Blank pages and unnecessary text in print jobs can result in a substantial amount of wasted ink and paper. A solution such as GreenPrint will enable you to print only what needs to be printed – blank pages and unnecessary text such as web addresses are automatically eliminated – reducing the amount of ink and paper that you’ll use. GreenPrint comes in free and paid versions.

Buy an ENERGY STAR rated computer

“If all computers sold in the United States meet the ENERGY STAR requirements, the savings in energy costs will grow to more than $2 billion each year and greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from nearly 3 million vehicles.” So says ENERGY STAR – a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy that labels products that meet a minimum set of energy-efficiency standards. Choosing a computer that has the ENERGY STAR label and using it with the recommended power management settings will enable you to keep electricity use to a minimum.

So, being green really is quite easy. And the best part about it is that you’ll not only be doing your bit to help the environment, you’ll also be keeping your electricity bill down – and saving money is something we all like to do, right?

Do you have any computer energy-saving tips? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: Looking Glass, marsi

Are You A Paperless Person? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Karl L. Gechlik — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:31:59 +0000

Last week’s MakeUseOf Poll looked at How Do You Access The Internet When You Travel? It seems that the majority of our readers are using a netbook or laptop to connect to the internet while on the go. Second place was held by smart phone users connecting to Wi-Fi networks.

I figured with the number of smart phones out there nowadays that most people would be using them to connect to the net while away from home but the small screens obviously hinder user performance.

You can see the full responses below:

This week we are asking our readers if they are paperless. Paperless is a term referring to the green goals of the future where no one has to print anything. Everything is digital from bills to invoices to financial documents. I know I have made an effort to stop getting snail mail bills. Yet some places still do not offer paperless billing options. Some people will not stay with a company that doesn’t offer paperless options.

So we are asking you where you are with becoming a paperless person. Let us know now in the poll below!

How To Calculate Your Ecological Footprint Before The Earth Day

Saikat Basu — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:31:25 +0000

In this article, I’m going to cover something called an ecological footprint calculator. As individuals, we all have ecological footprints. It’s the size that differs. A jetsetting globetrotter’s ecological footprint might be more sizable than yours. A Himalayan hermit might have a tinier one. But as long as we consume Earth’s resources, all of us have a trace of that footprint.

As we get ready to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, let us remind ourselves of a fundamental fact ““ it’s not the size of our ecological footprints, but what we can do to lessen it.

But what is an ecological footprint?

In real simple terms, it is the amount of Earth’s resources we need to support our current lifestyles. Or as Wikipedia put it, an ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems.

That measure can be approximated by using ecological footprint calculators which measure our using up of Earth’s resources (and generating emissions) across our day to day activities.

Tina let us know how we can use the internet to save the world almost two years back. The ecological concerns haven’t gone away, but the internet is still trying to save the environment. One site at a time. Here are a choice of seven of those.

My Footprint

My Footprint takes a measure of your lifestyle pattern through 27 simple questions. The result is likened to the amount of land and ocean area that would be needed to sustain your way of life. The ecological footprint is measured in global hectares or global acres. What you swallow from the Earth is also calculated across categories like home energy use and transportation, food, housing, and goods and services.

The best thing about this site apart from a slick interface is that it’s tailored for all countries across the globe.

Carbonfootprint

The calculator that’s available at carbonfootprint can also give the values for countries around the world. You have to enter a figure for the period (usually a year) of consumption. The calculator measures carbon emissions across several lifestyle categories and also secondary sources like dietary preferences and recreation habits. Results are compared against country and global averages.

Zerofootprint

Zerofootprint has a suite of tools which aid companies and communities to manage and offset emissions. As a part of its toolset for individuals, Zerofootprint has calculators for kids and youths. These are really simple tools that can be used in homes and classrooms for basic environmental awareness. For adults, you have a full set of quick one-minute calculators. After you enter your basic lifestyle information, the calculator will provide an estimate of your carbon emissions in 60 seconds or less. A broader tool is the Personal Carbon Manager which stores all your consumption data in your created account.

The calculators can be set to a country of choice from a dropdown menu.

World Wildlife Fund’s Footprint Calculator

A quick series of multiple choice questions for measuring your eco-impact. The questions cover your food habits, travel, home, and stuff (purchases). If you live in Europe, then this simple and quick calculator can give you a measure.

Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator

The Earth Day Network is a worldwide body and the organization that authors the Urban Environment Report, which ranks the health of 72 U.S. cities by more than 200 environmental, health and quality of life indicators. So you can expect them to have an ecological footprint calculator.The ecological calculator calculates ecological footprints for certain countries around the world. The approach is unique because you can go through the eco-quiz with a self created avatar. The quiz is a sequence of personal lifestyle data sets using sliders.

The calculator is also based strictly on the recognized global standard for ecological footprints. Thus, it calculates how much of a biologically productive area is required to produce the resources for the human population and to absorb its waste. The carbon footprint is just one of the things that adds up to the whole personal consumption meter.

Carbonfund

Carbonfund asks you to reduce your carbon footprint if you can and offset some if you can through donations. The donations are used to balance out your personal emissions with environmental projects elsewhere. Carbonfund’s footprint calculator adds up your carbon emissions from your home, use of car, buses, trains, etc. The tons of CO2 produced can be offset with the donation amounts specified. The donations are optional, but it gives you an idea of what it would take to offset all that you consume.The site is relevant for households in the US.

WattzOn

WattzOn takes the energy consumed angle to measure man’s impact on the environment. Using WattzOn’s tools, you can realize the total amount of energy (in watts) that’s needed to support your lifestyle. It is a great tool to draw comparisons between what we consume in terms of power and the devices that could be run using the same amounts. You get a breakdown of your energy footprint via slick charts.WattzOn believes that sustainability can not only come through reduction of our carbon footprints but also through wise energy use.

These figures reflected by these online environmental apps are of course not always on the button. Ecological footprint calculators do represent a fair idea of what we do and how much we waste. The short term change we can adopt is to lessen our ecological footprint in areas of least effort. For instance, walking to the supermarket instead of taking the car. The long term changes will be determined by our ecological conscience.

So, have you checked out an ecological calculator lately? Earth Day is on April 22nd.

Image Credit: DaveBleasdale

10 Search Engines To Help The Environment

Saikat Basu — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:01:31 +0000

Not many of us are environmental fanatics. Most of us can’t even place our own ecological footprint. But that should never stop us from doing our bit for the environment. Today, thanks to the internet we can ‘contribute’ right from our desks, whether it is by increasing our own awareness or by being part of a campaign needing mass support.

The power of search engines helps us wade through the universe of the web. This vehicle today is also being used as the agent of action to change the way we look at our planet. The environment should concern us all directly, so here are ten search engine services we can use with a click of the mouse to give back to our planet :

Forestle ““ Save An Acre Of Rainforest

Forestle, powered by Yahoo’s search technology, helps to save 0.1 square meters (0.11 yd²) of rain forest per search.

The ad-revenue generated from the web search goes to The Nature Conservancy which uses it to further the cause of rain forest protection. The company has estimated that an average user does about 1000 searches per year which translates into 100 square meters of conserved rain forest. The realization of your efforts is posted as monthly reports which details the area of rain forests saved.

Znout ““ The Google Way

If Yahoo is not your scene check out Znout from the same company but with Google behind the search tech. Znout is a Co2 neutral Internet search engine. No, the search engine does not spew out Co2 ““ Znout uses the ad-revenue to buy renewable energy certificates which balances out the carbon footprint caused by Znout.

Green Planet Search ““ Green & Slick

Green Planet Search is a website designed for your eco-habits. The Flash-driven green website is pleasing to the eye and the scruples as its home made search engine is strictly for eco-search. The website is devoted to environmentally-relevant content – educational, original news, events, blogs, products and reviews.

EcoWho ““ Towards Eco-Friendliness

EcoWho search indexes nearly 3 million ecologically relevant webpages. Value added offerings include an eco-news section, an ecological glossary, a blog section and an emerging article directory. The website is still under development but the search feature is sound enough.

GreenLinkCentral ““ Human Edited Green Search

GreenLinkCentral aims to be a one stop information source for everything that is environmental. The websites and links are vetted by the GreenLinkCentral team to ensure significance and quality. On top of the search box you will find three more useful links ““ Top Searches (for search suggestions), Articles (arranged in blog style categories) and Website Reviews (listing green websites).

Relying on human inputs rather than bots has the disadvantage of moderate results but a cursory glance through them revealed them to be closer to home.

Truevert ““ Focused On The Environment

Truevert is still in beta but it works well. Powered by Yahoo!’s open search web services platform ““ Yahoo BOSS, it delivers targeted environmental results. The front page draws in feeds from the popular green sites and blogs. Results are displayed beneath the query box along with a Preview icon. An Interesting Phrases icon lists the interesting phrases for the document. Search results can be narrowed down by using Themes on the left which acts like a filter for a particular keyword.

Ecocho – You Search. We Grow Trees

Ecocho offers a simplistic interface but a noble intent. It donates its revenues from advertising to afforestation programs. For every 1000 searches, Ecocho sponsors five trees.

Powered by Yahoo, searches on Ecocho allow the company to buy enough carbon offset credits to remove 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. Results can also be filtered by Region, Language and Document Format.

ClimateGift ““ A Portal & A Search Engine

ClimateGift is not only a well developed search engine but an ecological portal too. The website partners with other environmental organizations and passes on advertising revenue from user searches to these partners.

When the page loads, the web user can pick any of the organizations on display to be the beneficiary. From this point on, ClimateGift donates 50 percent of the ad-revenue to this non-profit entity every quarter. The website features news, articles and a Tools tab with a few applications loaded.

A logged in user can personalize his homepage with things such as news, weather, sports, entertainment, photos, videos, music, email and even a calculator. For a normal search a log-in is not required.

GreenMaven ““ Gateway To The Green Web

GreenMaven is a web service which uses Google’s custom search service to collate green news and links from the worldwide web. The search service claims to have mapped over 10,000 websites. It also has a business directory with nearly 4000 listings.

What I liked about the site was its capable search and the ability to delve directly into Digg-ed green articles.

EcoSeek ““ For Things Green

EcoSeek is a bit different from the other search engines listed. It is tuned specifically towards eco-friendly and green products. The service strives to educate all consumers about eco-friendly products, manufacturers and local earth-conscious retailers. A user can search through 13,000 Earth friendly products from 790 retailers.

Searches can be made by category. Though the search feature has a commercial slant, it helps the consumer make informed decisions about a green lifestyle. A free membership allows a user to take part in “˜green auctions’ for some of the products listed on the site.

What do you think of these green initiatives? Do you share the optimism that such web services can preserve a corner of the only place we can call home?

You might also like to read this post by Ann on 10 Websites to Keep You Updated on Green News.

How To Save Printer Ink & Make It Last Longer

Tina Sieber — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:01:49 +0000

Printer ink and toner are precious because, well, printing isn’t free and resources have a tendency to run out when you least need that to happen.

If you’re concerned with wasting material and spending too much money on ink and toner, you will certainly learn a thing or two from this article.

However, if your main problem is not having a replacement ready when you need it you’re out of luck here. The only advice I can give you is to shop for backup material in time.

You can save ink or toner on many different levels and it actually starts with the type of printer and ink you purchase. But let’s assume it’s too late for these decisions and move on to what you can do right now.

Level 1: Creation

Obviously, the first step is creating the documents you need to print.

1. Ecofont

That’s right, there are fonts that are more petite than others and because they require less ink or toner in the print, they may be considered eco-friendly.

SPRANQ has developed Ecofont, a font that saves approximately 20% of the ink or toner compared to standard fonts. The download is free and the site contains instructions on how to install it on Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Generally, use less bolded text, use smaller fonts and only write what’s essential. Novels are for writers.

2. Revision

Don’t print anything before you haven’t thoroughly revised the content for mistakes. Otherwise you might end up printing it several times.

Level 2: Selection

Here it’s about carefully selecting what to print.

3. Do I need this?

Print only what you need. Don’t print a whole book, if you’re only interested in a few paragraphs. Don’t print the graphics, if you’re only interested in the text and vice versa.

a) Word options

If you’re printing a piece of text for proofreading, you may not need to print the pictures. In Word you can make use of the print option “draft output”, which prints a fast and low-quality draft copy without images. Go to >file >print. This will open the print menu. In the bottom left click >options and check >draft output. Then go ahead and select the printer. But make sure it’s fine tuned according to the tips listed below.

b) Print What You Like

Basically, this is an online website editor, which allows you to optimize other websites for printing. Eliminate ads and white spaces and only print what you need.

It’s very simple. Go to the website, enter the URL of a page you’d like to print, for example this article, click start and begin editing. You can use the right-click menu to remove individual items, make them fit the width or isolate them.

On the left there’s a menu through which you can edit a group of items simultaneously, remove the background image or simply start printing. You can also save your edits as PDF or HTML. Finally, there’s a bookmarklet available with which you can conveniently start editing any page.

Karl did an article on “Print What You Like” here.

c) GreenPrint

GreenPrint is a piece of software for Windows (XP, Vista, 7) and Mac (OSX 10.5+). The free version comes with advertising, but it is safe and worth trying.

GreenPrint analyzes print jobs and makes you aware of potential waste. You can easily eliminate unwanted pages. Additionally, you can print to a PDF using this tool, which doesn’t require any ink/toner or paper at all.

For some extra motivation, GreenPrint tracks the amount of paper it has saved you.

Level 3: Fine Tuning

Finally, you can improve the technical side of your printer or your use of its options. Make the most of it and save on printer resources.

4. Printer settings

The right settings are essential and will save you the most when done right. Instead of manually choosing “low quality” settings for each print job (i.e. all the time), you should make “low quality” the default. Hence you’ll have to make “high quality” settings manually, which will make you choose them only when required (i.e. rarely).

To permanently change the default settings of your printer, go to (Windows) >Start >Printers, right-click on your printer and select >printer settings. Now the exact options you’ll see here depend on your printer, which means I can only give guidelines and you’ll have to figure out the details yourself.

a. Print layout

First of all, take note of the layout options you have. You may be able to print several pages on a single piece of paper or you may be able to print on both sides of a paper. Both options can save a ton of ink/toner and even paper. Please remember that if you change settings here, every print job will be printed like this per default. So keep in mind the options you have here for those special cases.

b. Print in black and white

Black ink or toner cartridges are usually much cheaper than the colors. So if you can, print in black and white or grayscales per default.

c. Reduce resolution

On some printers you can reduce the graphic resolution. This option is usually found under >advanced settings. 300 dpi (dots per inch) are usually sufficient for most purposes. Besides, regular paper can’t handle very high resolutions anyways. So applying a high resolution only makes sense when you’re using high quality photo paper.

Some printers have a draft or ink saver option. If you see this, make it a default setting. I’m using a Kyocera laser printer and under advanced settings I can enable EcoPrint.

Did you know that black, when printed in high quality, may be mixed from different colors on some inkjet printers? Of course that is much more expensive than printing black using the black color cartridge. So make sure your general printer settings are smart.

5. Print preview

Before you print anything, make use of the preview option and check whether things look good. At this point you may decide to manually change the settings, for example print several pages on one piece of paper, reduce the size of an image etc.

6. How to handle inkjet printers

First of all, you have to check the manual of your printer to see what the manufacturer recommends. If you have a new printer, it may already take the most common “user mistakes” (or previous design faults) into account and correct them automatically.

That said, here is some general advice.

a) Keep an electricity flow

In general, inkjet printers require a steady stream of electricity. Now if you completely disconnect your inkjet printer from electricity, for example by using a power strip that can be switched off, the printer will go through a cleaning cycle once electricity is back. If repeated on a daily basis, this procedure not only costs energy, but also tons of ink.

b) Turn it on and off manually

To save energy, turn your printer on only when you need it! And to keep the ink from drying out, turn the printer off manually. Don’t use the power strip! Using the manual on/off button activates a program and the printer will properly “park” the ink cartridges. In the park position the ink is protected from drying out quickly.

7. Toner Lifetime

For laser printers, many recommend to shake the toner cartridge to extend its lifetime and get the last bit of toner out of it. For me this has never worked. But since toner basically is powder it may indeed form clumps as it gets old, it may actually work on old cartridges.

Nevertheless, I strongly discourage you to handle toner cartridges in any way not instructed by the manufacturer. As you shake the cartridge, you’re releasing fine toner particles (respirable dust) and that is not healthy. This is a different story, though.

8. Print till it dies

Don’t be alarmed if your printer reports that ink or toner are empty. Chances are you have 10-30% lifetime left. So keep printing until the printer stops. However, don’t waste time and make sure you get replacements in the meantime.

For a ton of information about ink and toner, check out the Ink & Toner Information Website, which also covers several specific printer models.

What tips do you have to make your printer ink and toner last longer?

Picture credits: Scyza, CraigPJ, forwardcom, ikebowen