Most people like to get the most out of every purchase made, particularly in today’s environment. Every penny counts, and since ink cartridges cost money, it makes sense to maximize their usefulness. Fortunately, there are simple, practical ways to extend the life of printer ink. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is by storing printer ink properly.



The life of a printer ink cartridge can vary from a few months to as much as a couple of years. Because new cartridges typically don’t have print heads, they have an average shelf life of two years. No print heads means there are no small holes that can become clogged, so the ink remains in the main chamber and is less likely to dry out. New cartridges are also usually protected from possible air damage by being vacuum sealed or sealed in plastic. Remanufactured cartridges, on the other hand, usually have print heads and are more susceptible to clogging and drying out. The shelf life on these remanufactured products is typically about one year. For either type of cartridge, there are simple storage rules that can help prolong the life of the ink. First, cartridges should be stored in the original packaging for the most protection. A broken seal on the original packaging can allow air to enter and start to dry out the ink. Second, never store them in direct sunlight; the heat and light will negatively affect the ink and will shorten the life of the cartridge. Instead, ink should be stored in a dark, dry location at a temperature between 40 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Third, cartridges should be stored in an upright position to ensure that the ink flow will remain unobstructed. 



Sometimes it’s necessary to remove a cartridge from a computer and store it for later use. In these cases, it is even more important to follow a basic procedure to ensure that the cartridge doesn’t become frozen with plenty of ink left inside. The first step is to place the used cartridge in a small, zipper-sealed plastic bag. Secondly, place a damp sponge or towel in the bag; be sure that there’s no excess water, but that the sponge or towel is damp. The last step is to store the sealed bag in a dark, cook place until ready for continued use. These steps should prevent the ink from drying out for a reasonable amount of time.



Ink can vary according to cost, printer ink brands, and other factors, but one rule remains constant: the fresher the ink, the better it will perform. That is why it is vital that printer ink be stored properly.

Every office needs a printer, be it in inkjet, laser, or thermal form. Having a printer that can produce documents both quickly and accurately is essential to the functioning of any business, large or small. While the initial cost of most printers is quite reasonable, continued replacement of their printer ink and printer ink cartridges as they are used up, can be extremely expensive. Most OEMs such as Xerox, HP and Dell will offer bulk discounts for their ink, and guarantee that it will work with any of their products. Many of these suppliers also assert that their ink will work cross-brand if a company needs it to.



While buying OEM is certainly a viable option for a company, it can also be a money sink. Some companies have chosen to opt for another method – refilling printer ink cartridges. This has become a common practice, and can be done both online and by local vendors. Typically, these companies will also sell remanufactured ink cartridges, which contain a very similar blend of ink to the OEM versions, and are also constructed in a nearly identical way. When an OEM cartridge is taken to be refilled, the ink used will be almost a match with the original, but never quite the same, as all ink producers have their own special formula.



Most ink refillers and after-market retailers will offer guarantees that their product will work with your existing printer setup, and this is by-and-large the case. Issues can arise, however, if the ink cartridge fails or if there is a jam of some kind in the printer. Most printers will carry a warranty that states it is void if anything except OEM parts are used, and this includes printer ink. While it is unlikely that the ink itself could cause a malfunction in the printer, the manufacturing company will be under no obligation to fix the printer if they become aware that a refilled or after-market cartridge was used.



While most businesses will experience no problems with refilled ink, it is a cost/benefit situation. If all of the printers in the office were to suffer a malfunction, having them all with voided warranties could be very costly. By contrast, continuing to pay for OEM ink can add up very quickly, almost to the point where replacing the printers would be of a similar price. While after-market printer cartridge makers offer guarantees of compatibility, there is little a business can do to use these. The supplier would likely furnish a new cartridge but would not fix or replace the printer. Although refilled ink cartridges are a faster and cheaper method, they carry with them their own risks.



For most people, a computer printer is a fairly big purchase. Modern printers can cost hundreds of dollars, which is why good maintenance is absolutely crucial to get the most mileage out of the device. The good news is that maintaining any sort of printing device isn’t too difficult–you simply need to read your manual and follow some simple instructions. However, many computer users commit some minor printer mistakes that can drastically diminish the potential lives of their expensive new printers, so it’s well worth recognizing some of these mistakes and taking steps to avoid them.



The most common mistake that computer users make is fairly simple: they simply don’t use their printer ink. The longer that a printer ink cartridge sits without being used, the better the chances that the ink will dry up or pool in the print heads, which can create a clog. This leads to messy prints and wasted ink (as clogged print heads can be easily mistaken for a low-ink cartridge), and it’s even worse if you use ink cartridges that don’t have built in print heads, because you could permanently damage your device. You should always try to print at least a few sheets a week, as this will keep ink fresh and help to avoid any clogs. If you do have a clogged ink cartridge, you can often fix it by taking it out of your printer, reversing its direction, and letting it sit for a few minutes.



Computer printers are mechanical devices, and like any other mechanical devices, they can be worn down over time, so you should also remember to print a bit conservatively. Always use the “print preview” option when printing documents, and if you’re printing something off of the Internet, copy and paste it into a word processor before printing to save paper and ink and put less strain on your device. You should also try to give your machine breaks when printing especially large documents, as your printer can overheat if it’s not designed to print hundreds of pages at a single time. You can easily do this by printing only about twenty pages a time, and leaving about ten to twenty minutes between sections of the large document to allow the device to cool down.



Keeping your printer running smoothly is fairly easy, but it’s important to read the documentation that came with it and use a bit of common sense. You’ll save money on printer ink and on new printers by avoiding some of these common mistakes, and you’ll run into those frustrating printing issues much less frequently.





Replacing ink in laser jets and inkjet printers can be costly but there are ways to conserve the ink. Sometimes replacing printer ink cartridges costs more than purchasing an inexpensive printer. If you waste a significant amount of ink when you are printing your documents, you will have to replace your printer ink cartridges more often, so you will spend more money. These tips will help you reduce your expenses.




If you want to conserve your printer ink, you should use the economy or draft mode. This will keep you from wasting your ink but you will have a lighter copy. If you are printing out a draft or something simple, you should use this mode. In addition, if you are printing in the economy mode, the ink will dry quickly and you will be able to print the document faster. In addition, you should avoid printing photos if you want to conserve your printer ink cartridge. Photo printing drains the printer ink cartridge significantly, so avoid it if you want to reduce your household expenses.




You should keep your printer turned off when you are not using it. Many inkjet printers clean themselves automatically even if they are not being used. When they clean themselves, they consume ink, so don’t leave your printer on for long periods of time. Furthermore, if you want to conserve printer ink, you should make use of the print preview function. Print preview is available in most operating systems and it will let you review your document before you print it. You can avoid making a mistake when you print a document by making sure it looks fine in print preview. If you make a mistake, you can correct it before you print the page. This is an easy way to conserve ink inside a printer ink cartridge. It only takes a few seconds to review a document.




Last but not least, you should utilize the black only mode if you want to conserve printer ink. If you have a printer that contains color and black printer ink cartridges, you should select the black only mode when you are printing informal documents, notes, rough drafts, or white and black documents. Keep in mind that you should not replace your printer ink cartridges immediately when you get a warning that your printer is low on ink. When you get the warning, there is still some ink left in the cartridge. If you want to save more ink, you can remove the printer ink cartridge and sway it gently from side-to-side. That way, you will be able to print more documents with the same ink cartridge. Replacing ink in laser and inkjet printers can be a hassle and expensive for some people, but if you follow these tips your printer ink cartridges will last you a very long time.

Whether your printer takes 2 or 4 color print ink cartridges, many users will agree that they often spend more money on printer ink than they spent on the printer itself. Some even spend more money on printer ink within the first year of owning their printer. If you’re lucky enough to find a printer ink cartridge refill kit in this day, then I hope you have a steady hand, lots of patience and several old newspapers with little value. These can be tricky to use and some users complain that despite the reasonable price, refill kits don’t bring quality results when printing high-resolution images. If you work at home or for an outside company, here are a few things that will definitely extend the life of your printer ink cartridge.



Become familiar with your printer properties. This can be done by going into the Control Panel feature on the Start page. Go to Printers and Faxes and click on the printer icon that you are using. Then click on File and move your cursor down to Properties and click. Most printers have features that let you manually control the amount of ink to be used each time you print. ‘General’ or ‘Normal’ are set by the manufacturer as a default resolution of 600 dpi (dots per inch). Realize that more printer ink will be used when the printer is set to Photo or Image Quality, which brings a resolution of about 1200 dpi.
Determine what really needs to be printed. If you have say, a report or photo that will most likely require tweaking or heavy editing, then it is not necessary to print every change that is made. Especially in the case where the final approval may come from someone else before it can go to final print. If you’re not certain as to whether a document is ready to be printed or not, then it is best to save it to your desktop so that it is accessible at all times. 


Set your printer to a default setting that uses the least amount of ink. This feature is usually called ‘Fast Print”, ‘Draft’ or ‘Economy/Economical’. The dpi is around 300 and normally prints black text and objects as medium to dark grey. This is an excellent method for someone who either does a lot of printing, needs to print a lengthy document that is for their own personal use or prints documents that undergo constant editing before final presentation. Another advantage to having this default is that it takes less time to print a document.



In a business environment, the ultimate goal is to make more money than is spent. Every cent matters and it’s important to conserve resources wherever possible. Printing expenditures are a necessary cost of doing business, but there are many ways to keep printing costs at a minimum. One way to ensure that printing costs are contained is to conserve printer ink.



Businesses can control printing costs – more specifically, the amount of money spent on printer ink cartridges – by addressing various printing mistakes that many companies make. For example, businesses often neglect to evaluate the need to actually print documents. Corporate guidelines for printing documents can assist employees in making printing decisions and, ultimately, conserving ink. The guidelines can provide guidance for common situations that employees may encounter, as well as options for less common circumstances. For example, when documents must be printed, there are ways to do so using a minimal amount of ink. Large graphics or pages of a document that do not contain relevant information do not have to be printed. Printer options can often be changed so that the “draft output” option is used, or so that a lower graphic resolution is employed in order to use less ink while maintaining quality prints. The “print preview” option can also be used to proofread and review documents and make changes before finally printing them. All of these options allow businesses to print when necessary, but to also conserve resources and extend the life of each printer ink cartridge purchased.



Another method of conserving printer ink in a business environment is to opt not to print documents in some cases. For instance, notices, announcements, and other information that needs to be distributed widely can be e-mailed to all employees. Similarly, documents can be exchanged and viewed from a distance using shared drives on the company network, or in person using portable storage devices such as memory sticks or rewriteable disks. In order to share electronic documents easily across different platforms, files can be printed to portable document format (PDF). As the name implies, PDF files can be exchanged and viewed freely via e-mail, company networks, etc. In addition to the ease of using PDF files, another benefit is that utilities that convert files to PDF and that read PDF files are widely available, and many of them are free of charge.



Conserving printer ink in a business environment can be simple and relatively inexpensive. All it takes is a few simple changes for business to save ink and save money at the same time.


Printers are cheap but printing gets expensive. When purchasing a computer system, a printer is usually the least expensive part, but with $10 to $30 printer ink cartridges, printing quickly becomes the most expensive peripheral over time. Fortunately, by avoiding a few simple mistakes, users can reduce the cost of printer ink.



Remember this – printer companies want you to buy more ink. So, the “normal” quality will likely be much nicer than what is necessary. It is important to remember the purpose of a particular print job. While a resume or photo may require the highest quality, a memo or a joke to share can be printed at draft quality without affecting its effectiveness. This will save a lot of printer ink. Also, color printing is more expensive than black and white. For example, the HP Deskjet F380 has one black ink cartridge and one color cartridge. The color cartridge actually has three separate colors. If one of those runs out, the whole color cartridge needs replacement, even if there is still plenty of the other two colors. So, by using black and white unless color is absolutely necessary, printer ink costs can be minimized.



The wrong sort of printer can also make printing very expensive. The cost of printer ink can make a cheap inkjet printer end up costing many times more than a professional laser printer in the long run. From the Hewlett-Packard home page, an HP 02 black ink cartridge prints 660 pages and costs $20, or 33 pages for a dollar. A HP 42X laser toner cartridge costs $249 and prints 20,000 pages. That’s 80 pages for a dollar, less than half the cost per page compared to an inkjet printer. For large volumes, the difference grows quickly.



One of the most effective ways to reduce costs is to not always buy new cartridges. Refilling cartridges can be done at many shops or with home kits. Essentially a printer ink cartridge is am electronic spraying mechanism attached to an ink tank. Once the tank is empty the cartridge is empty. However, the spraying mechanism still works. So, by refilling the ink tank, a user can extend the life of an ink cartridge and reduce cost. Remember that the mechanism will break eventually, reducing quality or simply not printing at all. Some toner cartridges can be refilled as well, with the same benefits and problems. So, for a $20 dollar advertising contract pitch, everything probably should be brand new. But for coupons and emails, draft quality with refilled ink cartridges will save a lot of money. In printing, proper judgment prevents expensive printing mistakes.



Let’s face it, ink cartridges are not cheap. If you run a business or simply utilize a printer for personal use, you are well aware that printer ink can come at a high cost. Ink cartridges need to be changed fairly frequently, and the process of changing the cartridges needs to be executed perfectly, or it may lead to a small disaster. Stained carpet, ruined clothes, damaged equipment and costly repairs are all possible outcomes in the event of an ink-refilling mishap. To avoid wasting time and money, pay attention to the following tips on how to avoid an ink spill while refilling your printer ink.



The first necessary step to avoid an ink spill is to set up and maintain your printer properly. When possible, always use the original ink cartridge, which is the cartridge that is sold specifically for the make and model of your printer. These cartridges contain chips and circuits that are constantly in contact with the equipment. If for any reason (such as high cost or unavailability) you opt to use a non-original cartridge, make sure to use a recycled one that has been tested and approved for use. Untested cartridges can burst inside your printer and cause major damage.



Many times an ink spill is caused when the injectors (the tube from which the ink is released) get dry and blocked. In order to avoid this, use your printer frequently. You may also periodically print a page in color to ensure that your printer is functioning properly. Printing in color is a good way to test your printer since a page printed in color page uses and tests all cartridges at once. If you detect a faulty cartridge, change it immediately. Another important maintenance tip is to use high quality paper when printing. Low quality paper does not absorb ink efficiently, hence leaving it humid and runny. This ink can then stain or dirty the inside of the printer. Also, low quality paper can leave a trail of dust, which can in turn cause internal problems. 



When changing ink, it is imperative that you follow the exact procedure as stated in the instruction manual that comes with your printer. Make sure your hands are clean as you handle the sensitive equipment. To clean the printer manually, you can purchase a can of compressed air that removes particles. Simply lift up the flap to open the tray of your printer, then point and spray.

Saving money is on top of everyone’s list these days. If you’re an inkjet printer user, you know that purchasing ink cartridges can do some damage to your monthly budget. Here are a few tips to help you keep the costs of printer ink down for your household.

1. Use economy print settings. Most inkjet printers have more than one print quality setting. One of these settings should be an “econ” or “draft print” setting that uses far less ink than standard or high-quality settings. This is great for printing items like receipts, driving directions or other printouts that don’t have to look award winning.

2. Avoid printing photographs. Although printer manufacturers like to brag about how great printing photos at home is, photo printing is a massive drain on your printer ink reserves.

3. Use the copy machine. Ounce for ounce, most printer ink is more costly than gold. Using your inkjet like a photocopier can definitely put you on the road to the poorhouse. Why not cancel that journey and make your way to Kinkos or the Office Max instead? Make a nice copy on your inkjet printer and run off multiple copies on a photocopier instead.

4. Turn your printer off. Most people do not realize that many inkjet printers automatically clean themselves from time to time, even when not in use. When a printer cleans itself it consumes a small amount of ink. Turn your printer off to prevent it from doing so.

5. Buy separate color cartridges. Printers with separate printer ink cartridges for each color are best for saving money. That way, if one color runs out before the other, you only have to purchase that particular printer ink cartridge. Printer ink cartridges that combine colors are wasteful, as you must dispose of the entire cartridge even if only one color is exhausted.

6. Use print preview. Print preview is a function available in all modern operating systems to let you view your printout on-screen in the exact same format it will look like on paper. This allows you to see ahead of time if a print is not going to print properly, allowing you to make changes and avoid useless printouts.

7. Install virtual printer drivers. A virtual printer driver is like a printer that uses no ink and paper. It installs into your computer exactly like a normal printer driver but, instead of printing to physical paper, it saves your output to a file, such as a PDF file. PDF files can be saved, e-mailed and faxed just like any other document.

Making a bit of an effort to minimize your ink use will help save a lot of money for you in the long run.

The fact that we almost all use printers in our every day life makes it like that most of us forget how complex printers actually are. As a result, we may become frustrated when our printers do not give us the quality results we expect from it. However, there are a couple major factors you can control in order to ensure your printer continues to produce high quality prints.

First, the printer ink that you choose will have a major effect on the print quality you will get. For ink jet printers, there are two types of printer ink cartridges that you can purchase — pigment and dye based printer ink. Both of these have their ups and downs. In general, pigment ink is fast drying and can produce non-fading colors. However, dye-based ink is able to produce a much wider range of colors and produces high contrast images. Unfortunately with dye-based ink, wetness can result in the ink beginning to run when you are not printing on coated type of paper.

This brings up another important printing factor — choosing the proper paper type. Even if you select printer ink that is right for the specific job you have in mind, you may still not receive the quality you want if you choose the wrong paper. There are many different types of paper available, each designed for a certain job. Researching these before purchasing can help ensure a higher print quality. After printing, you also want to control the environment they are kept in. Exposure to the elements can result in your printouts fading or altering significantly. Keeping your print outs in dark, dry place can help to eliminate much of the damage that your printouts will suffer over time.

Another important thing to do when trying to achieve high quality printouts is to be sure to perform standard printer maintenance regularly. As previously stated, many of us forget the number of complex processes that a printer must perform. Keeping the machine in prime condition will ensure these processes go smoothly. One of the most important checks to perform is to look at the print head nozzle. This is where the ink is released onto the paper. Ink may dry here, blocking the nozzle, much like the ink of a pen drying in the pen tip. Checking to ensure that this is clean on a regular basis will help to ensure your printer functions normally.

Printers have come to play an integral role in the lives of many people — something that won’t likely change any time soon. Knowing what you should do to ensure quality prints will help make your life much easier in today’s high tech world.