Although printing is not free, it is necessary for any business. You need to print invoices, brochures and many other documents to share with your customers or colleagues; so you can't quit on printing.

Looking for solutions to save ink while keep printing the same amount of documents, I found three easy-to-use tools to start saving.

1. EcoFont

Ecofont is a software that turns the most common fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Calibri, Times New Roman and Trebuchet MS into eco-friendly fonts by putting small holes into each letter. This software is available for purchase in their own website and is currently available only for Windows users.

If you don't want to pay for the entire software you can also download for free a font called EcoFont Vera Sans which you can easily install in your computer and start using it across all programs such as Word and Adobe. We have been testing this font and the holes start to be visible when the font is sized 14.

2. GreenPrint

This is a powerful tool to measure and reduce print costs in enterprises and homes.
With this software you can analyze print volume and identify opportunities to save, such as the amount of pages that are being printed in color versus the ones printed in black and white. The software also comes with an Advisor option that will identify the lowest cost printer options and finally it comes with a preView where you can easily manage which pages of a document you want to print, you can also delete images and set the document or only specific pages to print in black & white.

3. Print What You Like

PrintWhatYouLike.com is a website that allows you to take any URL and modify its layout to print only what you want. For example you can delete ads, images, entire sections and so on.

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 Saving ink and toner when printing doesn't have to mean print less, instead, it should start meaning Print SMART.

I was facing a similar problem a few months ago when I was trying to buy a printer from Dell’s Website. I was looking for a color printer that was fast and cheap and that met my small business requirements. I started looking on their website and realized that there was a bunch of information that I didn’t understand, so I decided to investigate and write this easy guide to buy a good printer.

1. Laser or Inkjet?

The Inkjet is the regular liquid ink printer we’ve seen for years. These printers are good but when it comes to speed and printing quality they’re not the best option. On the other hand, Laser printers are faster and give better result in printouts due to their powder toner that doesn’t need time to dry and never leaks. They’re also quieter that Inkjet printers and toner cartridges can print many more pages than regular ink cartridges.

2. Brand?

I did a lot of research to find the best printer brand after deciding that I wanted a laser printer. What I found is that the most common manufacturers of small-medium printers are Dell, Samsung, Xerox and HP; but the decision depends on how much you want to pay and also the reviews of each printer.

3. Only Printing?

There are different types of printers that you can find in the market. The most common ones are the single function printer, which only have the printing option. There are also printers with scanner and multifunctional printers that include fax, printer, scanner and copier. The multifunctional printers are recognized because almost always in the name there are the MFP letters; these ones are better for large-scale use and for offices.

So if you just need to print invoices for your business or papers for college you probably don’t need anything else but a single function printer.

4. Wireless?

Wireless printers have the function to synchronize your printer with other computer using Wi-Fi. Basically what it is for is that if you have more than one computers, you can easily print from all of them without having to plug in any cable, just by configuring it in you Wi-Fi network.

5. Expensive supplies?

It is important to focus also in the cost of printer supplies, sometimes the price of the cartridges exceeds the price of the printer throughout less than a year. There are many different options for buying supplies at excellent prices without compromising the quality of the printouts, such as compatible and remanufactured toner cartridges and other printer parts. Remember to make sure that the supplier is reliable and offer a good warranty. 

Hewlett Packard is aware of the significance of involving their employees into social issues, this is why in 2010 they created an employee volunteering program in which their employees are able to use four hours of company time each month to dedicate to volunteer efforts.

All the HP team is high qualified in different field such as technology, engineering, human resources and manufacturing, and all of them skills have a huge value to share them with communities.

Some of the activities that HP employees take part in are pro bono services, serve on nonprofit boards or join company-sponsored volunteer programs.

Such as they say on their website, “HP's goal is to keep growing this program until we're making a meaningful impact for communities in all the countries where we do business.” A good initiative to help people based not only on the money donations but in time and knowledge sharing.

Sometimes the buying decision is made right away but other times people need to go throw the products, check prices and be convinced to buy from you. There are a lot of material you can use to not only give an excellent impression but also give some useful information such as brochures, business cards, newsletters and so on.

Designing templates for invoices, brochures and letters require a lot of time and can be very expensive. Epson has come up with a great tool that you ca use to download Microsoft Word templates to create all the documents you need. You just have to go to the Epson Creative Zone, select the Business project and there you will find hundreds of templates designs that you can download with just one click. Those templates are compatible with all the Microsoft Word versions.

Here is a comparison of the most important features of both Ultrabook and Macbook Air.

The Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook has a 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2637M processor, uses Windows 7 and has an 13.3’’ HD (720p) display. It comes with 4GB of Memory RAM and a 256GB Hard Drive. Its width goes between 6 mm in its thinnest point to 18 mm in the thickest point. The average boot time is 8 seconds and resumes from sleep mode in 1 second. The battery lasts from 5 to 8 hours.

The MacBook Air has a 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, a 4GB of Memory RAM and 256GB of flash storage. The display is 13.3-inch (diagonal) high-resolution LED. The height is 0.3 - 1.7cm, the width is 32.5cm, the depth is 22.7cm and its weight is 1.35kg. The battery lasts up to 7 hours.

Dell has made a big effort and they’ve came out with an amazing laptop that could certainly compete with the MacBook Air. Both of these devices are the best that you can find in the market if you’re interested in a fast and lightweight computer with a cool design.

Taking into account that one of the CEO tasks is not being a security guard, and that managing a company requires lots of time in thinking new strategies to develop products, and to make the business grow, Dell has come up with a new generation of servers that will help you, as they say “spend more time innovating and less worrying”.

With the new Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Servers you can manage anywhere, anytime with truly agent-free server management, reduce maintenance time with auto-update for replacement parts, access the most vital information quicker via storage tiering and protect data in motion using best-in-class RAID.

People is important to give a good customer service, develop new strategies and deal with all the daily situations in companies, but there is something else that is vital to the welfare of a business and it’s the quality of the appliances people use to work. Try to have qualified people and help them with excellent software and hardware that make their work even better.

Their commitment with the environments is growing faster, they are not only helping people with the innovation on the products they sell but also helping the world become a better place by fighting against deforestation.

In the year 2011, 48,071 trees were planted in South Carolina's Manchester State Forest and 30,592 trees in Wisconsin's Bayfield County Forest.

The impact in South Carolina is not only with the pine tree forest they are helping to reach its natural range but also with all the threatened and endangered species living there, such as the Red-cockaded Woodpecker.

In Wisconsin they are improving the health of the ecosystems by planting five different species of trees: white pine, red pine, jack pine, white spruce and tamarack.

The Google Cloud Print is a technology that allow people to connect printers to the web using phone, tablet, Chromebook and PC. It works on every printer but is recommended to use a Cloud Ready printer such as the PIXMA.

The main goal of a company as Canon is not only making money, but also provide people with the best and newest technology to make their lives easier and more efficient. That’s why they launched this new printers with Cloud Ready technology, which means they’re ready to set up with Google Cloud Print in a few seconds.

It’s not only the ability to print direct from our phones and tablets, but also the sharing feature that allows people to share the printer with anyone, on any device just as sharing a Google docs document.

It is true that when we are trying to pick the right present we face a little bit of doubt, but it doesn’t have to be this way. There are a lot of creative ideas that can fit perfectly with different kind of personalities, but one thing that never fails is a beautiful card with a loving message written by you.

The problem with greeting cards is that you have to go to buy them, besides you have to stay in line to pay a little peace of paper!

Brother has come with a great idea to make your life easier. They’ve launched a website call Brother Creative Center in which they have a lot of cards designs organized by special dates such as Halloween, birthday and so on.

The website is really easy to use, you just have to enter the site, select the card you liked, add or remove pictures and edit thetext inside of the card, after you finished just print it and you are ready to give the best customized card ever!

You can also create: Brochures, Mailers, Posters, Calendars and Invitations.

This is the case of Brother, that created a program called Click for the Earth, in which with every click, they make a donation of one yen (about one cent USD) for one of the eleven currently active projects.

The projects are carried out in different countries and are directed to the most important issues of each place as follow:

- Peru: protecting the rainforest
- Canada: Replanting the natural resources
- Central and South America: Rainforest Rescue
- USA: Replanting the Nation’s forests
- Australia: Volunteer in Marine Ecosystem Research survey
- Japan: Forests Conservation through tree planting and removal of non-native species
- China: Assisting Afforestation Programs in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.
- Hong Kong: Forest conservation through tree planting
- Thailand: Helping a Seed-planting Program to Protect the Mangrove Forests
- Madagascar: Biodiversity conservation activities in Madagascar
- UK: Contributing to Reforestation at a Former Quarry Site

Helping the environment is as easy as selecting the project you like most and click to Donate. Every cent counts, and as they say, unity makes strength.

AirPrint(TM) is a service that let you print directly from your iPhone, iPad or iPod without having to install the printer device, a very good alternative for home and offices that require efficiency and quality.

Every day new technologies are being developed and the commitment of other companies is to keep up with those developments and give people easy and fast answers to face the changes on this constantly growing society.