This is a fact that we unfortunately often notice too late (except once we have the experience of having had several): when we buy a printer (normal, not 3D), it is not expensive at all, with a printer at about 50 euros, you can already Have a nice one with a lot of features and ink cartridges!
That's wonderful… except when we have exhausted the ink cartridges provided (which we exhaust very quickly with the very first page of color test of very high quality and other pages of tests and configurations and with the little that was in from the beginning) and that we have to buy some new, there, we pale in view of the price of a single ink cartridge! For just a few milliliters, you end up having to buy an ink cartridge for about 15-20 euros! 15-20 euros times 4, because usually, when an ink cartridge is missing from a printer, you are simply blocked: you lack red ink, but you print in black, blue or yellow but without a pixel of red? The printer doesn't care and hop, forced to change the red! This makes you have to buy all the colors, because once one is exhausted, hop, you are stuck! Even if you know full well that this or that color, you use it very rarely!
Even more infuriating when the cartridge has dried up, there is a problem with the print heads, a configuration problem and you have to reprint the test page, etc. and that drains your ink cartridge in a mind-blowing way!
Fortunately for us, there are different tricks!
Tips for printers and ink cartridges
Choosing your printer
Instead of buying a cheap printer and high-priced cartridges, before you buy the printer, check the price of cartridges (and the number of milliliters!) before. Always make x4 to get a good idea. Because if the pack of 4 ink cartridges is worth more than the printer, it's useless, you might as well buy a new printer!
Prefer separate cartridge printers: if a cartridge is missing, you are forced to change that one that is exhausted, it is already that to win, rather than change a single cartridge that is 3/4 still filled!
If you print a lot, prefer professional printers that, although expensive to buy, have a much cheaper cost per page than the general public.
If you only print in black and white, prefer lasers, which have much better printing speeds and don't have to worry about dry ink.
Optimizing printing
This is self-evident, but print that what you need! If there's a big picture you don't need, take a few minutes to remove it, it'll make you money earned!
According to the printers, printing in draft is very much drinkable, in this case, enjoy it! In others, this is not the case, in this case, move on to the next trick. But one thing is for sure: don't print in photo mode if it's only black and white text or even in color! ;-)
Changing the print font
Reduce the size of the font if possible. It depends on your preferences, but if you can print in 14 instead of size 16, it's already like winning! As they say, there are no small savings! Or, the small streams make the long rivers!
To save ink, there is also a writing font dedicated to this: The ecofont.
The principle is simple, instead of the line that forms each letter is full, it is filled with full white circles inside:
The larger the font size, the more visible the empty space inside the handwriting. This empty space is of course all the savings in ink gained. But you have to like to read this font of writing that strongly reminds us of the light bulb signs of the kind that we find especially in Las Vegas I would say:
Buy cheaper ink cartridges
Rather than buying official (and therefore expensive) ink cartridges, it is better to buy generic (so unofficial) cartridges that are of course much cheaper and have a larger amount of ink inside. Also!
You will need to find them in any store that sells ink cartridges, but you can also order them online as for example on tonerpartenaire.fr as here for Canon printers. Same-day delivery, price (double) reduced from 2 cartridges, wide selection,…
Be careful with generic cartridges: manufacturers don't like to be attacked for their gross profit: the majority of generic cartridges are usually detected and make sure to change your mind: detection message, pubs to buy their cartridge, extra step to print, etc…
Before, it was still possible to reload the ink cartridges ourselves. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to do this, we are practically obliged to have the chips that go with the ink cartridges, to make a reset and reprogram them, etc. … Sometimes it even becomes a fight between the firm that sells printer and ink cartridge and companies that come out of generic ink cartridges: change of chip, software and therefore detection ….