GreenPrint

The best way to reduce printing costs is to properly arrange your text on each page by eliminating as many blank spaces as possible and to use less colors or none. The solutions offered by Green Print will help you print documents with maximum efficiency and save money while doing this. Green Print is a larger software suite designed for professional use, but you can also get Green Print preView+ for free.

Downloading the installation kit may take some time on slower Internet connections because it is almost 21 Mb large. The installation process will take an extra minute to finish as well. Fortunately, there is no wizard to go through. You will only have to click a button labeled "Agree and install."

Green Print works as a printer driver, so there is no use looking for an .exe file after you install it. When printing a document, you will find the application in the printers list. Using it as your default printer will launch a simple, user friendly interface where you will find a few options, designed to increase printing efficiency.

The toolbar features a drop menu for selecting a printer, and another one for selecting long or short edge duplex printing. If you want to save ink, a button on the toolbar can enable black and white printing. Alternatively, you can set the colors of individual pages to greyscale. Clicking on one of the pages, in the main area of the interface, will display a small pop up menu with options for greyscale toggling, removing images or the entire page. These options will take effect immediately after clicking them. You can also remove the text from a certain page by selecting it and clicking the designated button on the toolbar. Another function, launched from the toolbar, will convert the document to PDF. Simply click the button, specify an output path and the file will be ready in a few seconds.

The cost of the printing task (in US dollars) will be displayed under the toolbar. This is broken down into original cost, the cost with Green Print and the amount of money you save. It may not seem like much, but a total savings view will convince you otherwise. These savings are displayed on the lower edge of the window and they include the number of saved and printed pages, the amount of money saved and the amount of greenhouse gasses saved. Saving paper is good for the environment, after all. These numbers will be saved and updated each time you print something. For a more detailed look, you can click the Report button on the toolbar. This will bring up a window with the same statistics, displayed on charts and tables. Finally, you can start the adjusted printing process by clicking the Print button on the toolbar.