Printing Costs: Does Font Choice Make a Difference?
Did you realize you can actually cut printing costs just by choosing another font? Even with everyone looking for new ways to save money, it’s doubtful most people have considered the font they use for letters, reports, and notices, but you can actually save 31% on your ink cartridge costs just by picking the right font.Printer.com recently put this notion to the test using two popular printers. The Canon Pixma MP 210 was picked to simulate the printing of private users while the Brother HL-2140 laser printer was used to test business use. Both printers were left at their default settings (600 by 600 dpi). Changing only the font resulted in saving between $20 and $80 per year.
Arial, reigning as the most popular font, was used as the “zero” measurement, against which nine other fonts were tested. The clear winner was Century Gothic, which returned 31% savings in both printers. For the average private user, printing approximately 25 pages per week, this will easily generate a net reduction of $20 in a year. A business-user, printing approximately 250 pages per week, could save $80. If your organization uses multiple printers, you can save hundreds of dollars per year doing nothing more than picking a more economical font.
Century Gothic is a modern font that comes standard with MS Windows. Surprisingly, it even beat Ecofont which was specifically designed with efficiency and cost in mind. For those who require a more “traditional” look, Times New Roman provides a good balance between style and savings.
Details of the research:
• 10 frequently used fonts were selected.
• The font size (10 or 11) is relative. Font size was chosen in such a way that the page filling for all fonts in the model letter was virtually the same.
• To determine the coverage, the model letter is saved as PDF file. This PDF is calculated by the software pfill, which calculates the coverage of the specific font.
• To determine the cost of a private user per year, the inkjet printer “Canon Pixma MP 210” was used with 25 printed pages per week.
• To determine the cost of a small-business user per year, the laser printer “Brother HL-2140” was used with 250 printed pages per week.
• Both Canon and Brother publish the number of printed pages with a coverage of 5%. Through interpolation, the costs have been calculated for other coverage rates if the sample letter would be printed with other fonts.
• For the Canon printer, calculations are based upon a black cartridge PG-40 with a retail value of roughly $17 In case of the Brother printer calculations are based upon a black cartridge with a retail value of $30.
Photo credit: borman818
>> Listen to an NPR report about the U of Wisconsin’s switch to Century Schoolbook (2 minutes)
Disclaimer.
The values of the Printer.com research are approximate values that are based on the model letter. Actual situations can be different. Printer.com makes no warranties or representations whatsoever with regard to any product, information or calculation provided or offered by any manufacturer, e-store or merchant; and you hereby expressly acknowledge that any reliance on any representations and warranties, whether provided in writing or otherwise, provided by any e-Store, merchant, vendor or manufacturer will be at your own risk.
A similar test was done using apfill here:
http://www.emerginginvestigators.org/2014/03/the-effect-of-font-type-on-a-schools-ink-cost/
The table of results is more complex than needed, but does quote more fonts than Printer.com:
The test covered a few other points than coverage.
Apfill software gave different result on a mac or a pc, and about 8% higher than a manual estimage.
Test documents can be done for a specific purpose. The school test document had a lot of underlines in it because teachers use them in handouts: the character quoted after "z" is underline or underscore.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Or if you’re really concerned about saving ink/toner, just stop printing.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:01 am
April 26th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Sanserif fonts like Arial are grand for headlines, not so good for the body of the text. Sure you’ll save some money, but you’ll wear out the reader. Those little tails, the serifs, on fonts like Garamond help lead the eye along.
If you’ve just printing tons of crap and you don’t think it matters if anyone reads it, then hey, use Helvetica. But if you are writing something important or worthwhile, OR, if other people are compelled to read it, then don’t make them suffer to save yourself a couple of cents.
For the body of text, Arial sucks.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
If you want to use a serif font, you’ll notice from the chart that Times New Roman (a serif font) handily beats out Arial in efficiency.
Arial sees such widespread use primarily because it’s the default in programs like MS’s Word and Internet Explorer. But Century Gothic is far more efficient in terms of ink usage.
I myself prefer Garamond as well. It’s just a friendlier font that invites the reader’s eye to peruse the page. But when efficiency counts, like for drafts and things, I think I’ll probably switch to Century Gothic. Buying all those ink cartridges really bites you in the wallet!
June 7th, 2009 at 1:50 am
They’ve taken a very plain font and punched tiny holes in all the glyphs in such a manner that it doesn’t detract from readability.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:25 am
Also for your information, those little tails, stressed lines, sagging umlauts and dots at the ends of the letterforms, all mean that you’re printing in the German.
November 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
March 26th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Thanks, Gary
March 31st, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I too would like to see the comparisons at the same font size. Changing the font size would change the amount of ink used Until the font sizes are the same this test does not prove Century Gothic is cheaper than Arial because the fonts sizes are different.
The reason for changing the fonts to 10 point vs 11 point was for filling the page. The test should be done so all words fit on one page with the exact same words for each font. This would be an accurate test to prove which font saves money.
By using Arial at 10 point I might save more money than with Century Gothic, but this test doesn’t give me those numbers.
With my preliminary testing I found using the same point size for Arial and Century Gothic and having lengthy text. I would use more paper with Century Gothic. The exact same text at the same point size fitting on a page with Arial would flow onto a second page with Century Gothic.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Do you ever use EcoFont? I am curious as to how this compares.
March 31st, 2010 at 9:41 pm
I don’t myself, but if you check on our table, you’ll see that even EcoFont came in second to Century Gothic.
April 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Consolas 10.5, Century Gothic 10, Calibri 11, Times Roman 11, Arial 11, and Ecofont 10. Consolas 10.5 is the default plain text email font at our college. Our default html font is Calibri 11 which according to test results in the article is about 9% more wasteful than Century Gothic 10. I think the point size differences are understandable since some fonts run small or large. Subjectively I liked Time Roman 11 for the combination of clarity and ink efficiency (in the top three along with Century Gothic and Ecofont). I am surprised it is that good in ink efficiency. I’m looking into it and considering changing to this as the default font for our college to give the best bang for the buck with the least ink.
April 5th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
"The test should be done so all words fit on one page with the exact same words for each font"
That is exactly what they did by changing the font. I agree that it is not entirely scientific though. What they should have probably done is figured out a way to "shrink to fit" everything on one page and done the test that way.
Its tough but I’m sure there is a way to make an exact comparison. Basically you want the same word count per page regardless of the font size. They were closer than just using the same font size across all fonts in this experiment but it seems to be a bit more of an "eye-ball" measurement than some kind of math calculation.
This is a great start though. I brought this up in our stuff meeting this morning and everyone got really excited about it.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Why change the fonts if you can optimize the amount of ink used to print all fonts, graphics, and images?
April 7th, 2010 at 9:39 am
April 7th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Print using GARAMOND. Try it out and you will experience savings on ink and paper.
April 7th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
On a one-page document that won’t matter, but in a book, that can mean many additional octaves (pages of eight, which is the standard for books), which is more expensive.
Has anyone priced that?
April 7th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
I’m no math major and I hope I’ve calculated this correctly but:
Based on the studies’ assumption of 25 pages/week home use and 250/week for business when using any of the fonts the Canon is roughly 260% more expensive than the Brother:
For Century Gothic:
Canon – $0.0356/page
Brother – $0.0137/page
Even using Franklin Gothic the Brother is only $0.022/page. If the target is to save money buy a printer with cheaper ink, then use the most efficient font for your document needs. For the life of me cannot understand why printer ink costs $5,200 / gal. (Canon – 11ml = $15) other than we have been conditioned to pay it. Color is over $8,400 / gal.!
If you want to be green forget the ink, focus on the paper.
Sometimes I think the printer companies picture us with a big sucker sign slapped to our backs. Maybe they\’re right.
April 7th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
April 7th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
April 8th, 2010 at 2:54 am
April 8th, 2010 at 4:10 am
April 8th, 2010 at 11:03 am
2) Size matters but some fonts use more ink. Valhalla says "…but doesn’t seem any thicker in the lines", correct, and also says "Takes up more space than Century Gothic", but that is in the horizontal not in the vertical.
Please, check Courier New.
April 8th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
[Futura is a lot like Century Gothic, but slightly condensed]
April 8th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
April 8th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
April 8th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
What if I print 1000 pages per month, is that $320 per year?
April 8th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I am currently working on a 140 page document, which is in Arial font. When I switched to Century Gothic, the number of pages increase to 150.
That’s a 7% increase in the number of pages, which is not negligible.
April 8th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
1.
The request to test additional fonts has been heard, loud and clear! Our original testing was done about a year ago, and since then the Ecofont has been redesigned, and I now know that people are in love with various
2.
To those discussing the fact that different font sizes can have an impact on readability and the length of a document– of course you are correct. I think the thing to keep in mind is that we conducted a controlled test, which has to make certain assumptions and must keep certain aspects of the test constant to get meaningful results. Our results should only be used as one piece of input into your decision about what font to choose for your particular document. Just as there are hundreds (thousands?) of fonts to choose from, there is no single answer to the question “what font should I use in this document?”
3.
To the person commenting on the fact that the choice of PRINTER is more important than font to save money while printing, you certainly have a good point. That’s one of the reasons we created http://printer.com, so that we can expose the true cost of ownership of a printer, taking into account usage and the cost of ink over several years. I personally have found that buying a “cheap” printer is not so cheap in the long run. These “cheaper” printers tend to have much smaller ink cartridges, therefore you have to change cartridges more often. Even if the smaller cartridges are marginally cheaper than bigger ones, over a several year period you can find yourself spending WAAAAY more for ink than if you had purchased a more expensive printer (with larger cartridges) to begin with.
Bob Crum
Printer.com
April 9th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Ecofont software will be available end of June.
Kind regards, The Ecofont Team
April 10th, 2010 at 1:19 am
April 11th, 2010 at 5:27 am
April 11th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
April 12th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Arial and other serf fonts are on the other hand better for screen reading.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Of course the space occupied is something defined by the font itself, and also by the font size. But if we compare different fonts, i think a better hypothesis should be the same font height (due to readability) and not the number of page occupied.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
April 16th, 2010 at 1:05 am
April 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
April 19th, 2010 at 12:54 am
April 24th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
I wanted to let all of you know that we at Printer.com have discussed an additional round of testing, Phase 2, and we believe that we will do this. We are looking at all of your suggestions of what fonts we should test. In addition, we want to wait for the new Ecofont, which apparently won’t be available until the end of June. So…stay tuned.
Also, the test we did last year is not available in any form that we could make available for download. We didn’t anticipate that need, and didn’t prepare for it. However, we are looking at a brief we could create for this Phase 2 testing. Again…stay tuned.
Bob Crum
Printer.com
April 27th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
So those studies should be extended to analyse also the font change in relation to the paper usage.
With kind greetings
Tobias
P.S.: Sorry if my english might be a little bit difficult to read or wrong sometimes for native speakers. I’m from germany.
April 29th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:01 am
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Print less – The less you print the more you save.
Write less – edit your documents. Most texts are too wordy.
May 5th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
https://www.ecofont.com/en/products/green/printing/saving-printing-costs-and-eco-friendly/why-ecofont-saves-more-ink-than-century-gothic.html
May 6th, 2010 at 2:18 am
To Preston:
Yes, of course, printing with compatible or remanufactured cartridges is certainly a way to save money over the use of OEM cartridges. Some people even elect to refill their own cartridges with ink and toner, thus saving even more. It is up to individuals to determine if this is something they would like to try.
To Yordan:
Our original testing was done in early 2009, and this blog entry was posted on April 13, 2009. At that point in time, the only Ecofont was the “original” one, which is explained in the last paragraph of the link you provided. Since that time, the Ecofont people “…decided to develop Ecofont into software that shoots holes in EVERY font.” The entry you reference was posted by the Ecofont people recently, after the story about the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay broke, so I don’t think it’s a matter of “checking sources” better, but rather taking into account the timeline of what has happened. The new Ecofont software will be availble in June, and we are contemplating how it could be included in our “Phase 2″ testing that we are considering.
May 6th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
May 6th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
May 6th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
May 6th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I’m not sure it was clearly stated in the comments above. Let’s take the example of 140 pages of Arial being 150 pages in Century Gothic. If I read it right, 140 pages of Century Gothic at 3.45% coverage is cheaper than 140 pages of Arial at 5%. But I had to print an extra 10 pages. That is 10/140 more pages/ink. The percentage to use for cost savings, if I’m doing this right, is 3.45 + 3.45 * 10 / 140, or 3.45 + .25 or 3.7%. That makes it more like $49.68 for the year.
Thus I don’t think you can ignore this in order to get accurate meaningful results.
thanks,
chris
May 19th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
the simplest solution is to use toner / ink saving software like Inksaver.com or PretonSaver.
it will save up to 70% of your toner and ink usage, i use Pretonsaver.
I don’t know about ink saver, but pretonsaver has a free trial.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:23 am
I would, specifically, like to know how Arial 10 is vs. Century Gothic 10… Not 11 vs 10 like in the chart.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:02 am
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:14 am
March 2nd, 2011 at 2:18 pm
It works with your current fonts, so no need to change your docs or house style. You can also print Century Gothic in Ecofont style for the ultimate saving.
It doesn’t matter if you have a HP, Ricoh, Xerox, Canon, Lexmark, Oki, Lexmark, Samsung, Sharp or any other printer/copier. You can save more than 25% toner on all devices.
August 5th, 2011 at 9:13 am
November 13th, 2011 at 2:13 am
February 19th, 2012 at 10:52 pm
April 26th, 2012 at 11:11 am
May 24th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
June 29th, 2012 at 4:11 am
To learn more, check out my post.
http://ebeeler.blogspot.com/2012/06/comparing-apples-oranges-and-fonts-how.html
June 29th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
http://ebeeler.blogspot.com/2012/06/comparing-apples-oranges-and-fonts-how.html
August 8th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
September 18th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
It there a way to know the results or has there been a study done on this?
Thanks