Slashdot Mirror
New Font Uses Holes To Cut Ink Use
An anonymous reader writes "A Dutch company has taken an open source Sans Serif font and
added holes to it to try and save on printer ink costs. The Ecofont is claimed to save up to 20 percent of ink costs, but it allegedly took the firm a while to perfect the ratio of the maximum number of holes possible without sacrificing readability."
Looks interesting, but probably not very practical. Surely simply printing in draft mode and in grey-scale is an easier way? On screen this is probably going to be more headache than its worth.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
These people don't seem aware that typefaces are usually available in many weights.
You can save much more than this by simply changing to a lighter weight.
(I am a typographer. But it shouldn't take one to figure this out.)
you had me at #!
I have a way to save 100%. Don't print it!
I prefer to use Inverted Ecofont, in which everything else is removed and only the holes remain. This saves 80% of the ink, and it known to some people as "dot-matrix draft mode".
This is new font is stupid and not news.
I agree. Their idea is redundant as most letters come pre-made with holes in them.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
On an LCD, you should use a dark theme in the winter so that the dark pixels soak up the extra backlight photons and convert them into heat. In the summer, go with a lighter theme that will let all of the photons out before they have a chance to run up your AC bill. Oh, and make sure you set the monitor up near a window so the extra photons can just keep right on going.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You forgot the clever part.
Poke holes in the cookies before serving. The cookies are now 20% healthier!
12 * .8 = 9.6
LIAR!
Or modify English spellings to conform with those used by 13 y/ olds in their text messages.
u cn save ink n papr 2 !
Face your daemons!
Paper trees are always re-planted after being cut down (it would get unsustainable very quickly if this didn't happen) - and generally also have a lot of recycled material in the final product. The tree-cutting damage comes from the food industry clearing the way for beef cows or corn crops.
Never mind how insanely expensive ink is. The wasted ink is by far worse than the wasted paper. If you want to save a few sheets, shrink your print margins; either way, there's really no net gain or loss in trees.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Really, guys. I'm not that funny.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Unfortunately, since you don't take ink seriously, I'm guessing you are spending too much printing your newsletter and will be out of business shortly.
Bonus tip: if you put everything in quote tags, it saves on black electrons.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
In our University, printing used to be free until 2 years ago. Since the university started charging 3 cents per printout, the total number of printouts taken in computer labs has gone down by 70%. Perhaps your univ should try that out as well.
Face your daemons!
Sigh. As the various outraged typographers here attest, this is a self-promotional stunt and has nothing to do with innovation or even typography. The clue is the first line of TFA:
"Dutch marketing and communications company Spranq has come up with a novel and free way of slashing printer ink costs by developing a font with holes in it."
I work for a marcomms agency as well. This is how such agencies get clients: you pull stunts like this to make yourselves look like gurus in some way, so when you go in for pitches you have lots of press clippings (clients don't read them, they just look at where they were published) so you have some kind of differentiation over your rivals. I worked for a place where we made a big fanfare about recruiting an "artist in residence" (and got lots of press) - others in our space have launched "labs" or various kinds, etc. etc.
There's no substance in any of it. It's all just a marketing con-job and sad to say Slashdot has fallen for it (not that a marcomms agency's clients would be interested in a /. story anyway).
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
12 point font means the font's vertical size is 12/72in = 1/6th of an inch.
Keeping a constant aspect ratio, the ink savings would be (12*12-10*10)/12*12 = 30.56%
For 20%, sqrt(.8)*12 = 10.73pt font. He was underestimating! ... and yet, no one cares....
Deforestation is almost exclusively the result of agricultural expansion. It makes no sense to say that saving paper = saving forests.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the matter:
Even when deforestation is the result of lumber harvesting activities, it is primarily because the roads used to access the lumber make it easier for farmers to move in and use the land.
While forest area is on the decline in the US, it is due to urbanization, not timber harvesting activities (the same article discusses this).