Tips for Conserving Paper

Printing is free on this campus, and while that is a great bonus to students, it should be done wisely. We’ve already told you this week how much paper is used just in the library in one year. You’ve also seen how much paper is left on the printers in one week.

You can take advantage of free printing while conserving paper at the same time:

Double-sided printouts: the library printers are automatically set to print double-sided, but many people leave these printouts on the machine, preferring single-sided printouts. If you are not required to use single-sided pages for class, leave this setting on. If you need a single-sided printout, change the setting before you print: File>Print>Properties>Print on Both Sides (uncheck this) .

Use Print Preview : Make sure your printout will look like you expect it to. Some websites need to be printed in Landscape orientation so that words are not cut off. Go to File>Print Preview to see what you’re going to get.

Don’t print everything in the print queue: When you look at the print jobs displayed on the touch screens, ask yourself “do I need all of this?” You may have printed some documents twice, or maybe you went back and made a change to something and printed again. Also, there may be print jobs left from the last person who used the computer. Look at the time stamps and the number of pages on the jobs to determine which you really need.

Email or save articles instead of printing: If you’re not sure whether or not you’re going to need an article later, save it to your flash drive or email it to yourself. You can always print it later if you need to. Most of the article databases, and many websites, allow you to email or save an article.