Printer has been replacing typewriter machine or electronic typewriter for quite some time.  With the existing of personal computer (PC), printing letters or any kind of documents is much easier.

But that doesn’t come without a drawback. When printing gets easier, people tend to print without thinking twice. To make it worse, when a small typo may caused a whole reprint, adding more papers in the waste land.

Here are some tips on how to save the environment by printing less:

Use the draft setting: This setting prints exactly what it says: A draft quality printout that isn’t as dark as a regular printout. You wouldn’t want to use it for things that need to be perfect, but it’s great for proofreading and for things like receipts or copies of bills that you’re keeping for your own records. The draft setting uses far less ink than the standard setting. Generally this setting is found in your printers’ control panel.

Print on both sides of the paper: Many printers offer a function that lets you print on both sides of a page, saving you considerable amounts of paper. You may have to experiment with the function at first to get used to feeding the sheets in correctly, but once you’ve got it down it’s very easy.

Recycle ink cartridges for cash: Staples, Office Max, and other office retailers offer store credits in exchange for your old ink cartridges. You have to join their loyalty programs, but you can use the credits to offset the cost of more ink and paper.

Invest in laser printer: Laser printers are far more efficient users of ink than inkjet printers. One toner cartridge can last for 5,000 pages and costs an average of $30 – 60, much less than you’d pay to print the same number of pages with an inkjet. Not only that, a laser printer prints much faster than an inkjet. You can find a good quality home laser printer for as little as $50 – 60 on special.

Use the printer friendly link on webpages: Many web pages have a link to a printer-friendly version of the page. It prints your page without all the ads and graphics, which are big ink eaters. It also formats the page so that it uses a minimum of paper.

Print in black and white unless you really need color: Many inkjet printers default to color print mode unless you specifically tell it to print in black and white. Change your print setting to black and white unless you really need the color. The color setting uses more ink than the black and white, even if the page you’re printing is all black and white.

Reuse paper when possible: Whenever you print something for your own use, see if you can reuse the paper when you’re done with it. For example, if you print directions to the museum, use them to get where you’re going and then reinsert the paper for another job. When a printout comes out wrong, put the mistake back in the printer the next time you’re printing something unimportant for your own use.

Print to File: You may find it’s much easier to read a printed matter rather than in web version. Try to print it to software like PDF which can give you almost the same reading experience as if reading it on printed paper.

Share images electronically: If you want to share your pictures with friends and family, there’s no need to give prints to everyone. Burn the pictures to a CD, email them to the recipient, or post them to an online sharing site like Flickr.com. The people to whom you send the pictures then have the option of printing them on their dime, or just storing them electronically. Unless you’re giving a specific print as a gift, there’s no need to print all your pictures.

Scale your document to fit on one page: Many printers have a “scale to page” or similar option that reduces your printout to fit on the specified page size. This is very handy when printing large graphics or spreadsheets that may lop over the edge onto more pages.

Print in 2-Up or 4-Up format: Many printers allow you to print two pages on one piece of paper, similar to the layout of a book. If you’re just proofreading this can save you a lot of paper. If your eyes can take it, you can also print in 4-Up format, with four pages printed on a single piece of paper.