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College To Save Money By Switching Email Font

Posted by samzenpus on from the smallest-things dept.

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has come up with an unusual way of saving money: changing their email font. The school expects to use 30% less ink by switching from Arial to Century Gothic. From the article: "Diane Blohowiak is the school's director of computing. She says the new font uses about 30 percent less ink than the previous one. That could add up to real savings, since the cost of printer ink works out to about $10,000 per gallon. Blohowiak says the decision is part of the school's five-year plan to go green. She tells Wisconsin Public Radio it's great that a change that's eco-friendly also saves money."

13 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Why not laser print? by Sporkinum · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who was the genius there that had them using ink jet printers instead of laser? Probably the same genius that thinks this will save them money?

    --
    "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
    1. Re:Why not laser print? by michrech · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not as simple as you'd think (though there is no good reason it shouldn't be simple!).

      See -- I work in the ITS department in a college. We strongly discourage the individual departments from purchasing inkjet printers, however, because they're "cheap", and since we're facing huge budget reductions, the departments purchase them anyway. They're then upset at the ink costs, which we warned them about. They're even more pissed when they find out we can't obtain parts to fix their cheap pieces of garbage (let alone that, even if parts were available, our time spent fixing such a POS would make it too expensive). It all boils down to short-term thinking. They *never* take into account how long they'd like the printer to work, and it's total cost of operation. They only see the initial bottom-line.

      --
      bork bork bork!
    2. Re:Why not laser print? by DragonWriter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Where does it say they're using inkjet printers?

      It references saving ink and the cost of ink.

      That means that they are using printers that use ink rather than toner.

    3. Re:Why not laser print? by compro01 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Possibly the part where they mention ink and how much it costs?

      Fun fact : it would be cheaper to print in blood than in HP ink?

      Unless their "director of computing" can't tell the difference between ink and toner, which wouldn't surprise me overmuch.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  2. disclaimer: in the industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Firstly, train your students that printing up emails is stupid.

    Secondly of all, give the students access to community laser printers. We're talking about pennies per page versus small fractions of pennies per page to print (i.e. 10 cents versus 0.001 cents)

    Thirdly, switch over to re manufactured inks and toners. If the students are aware that they can buy aftermarket inks and toners, there's another 50% savings off the top (AND it's "green"). There are good companies and there are bad companies. Find someone local. Its supports the nearby economy. If you have problems, you don't have to ship something back to China.

    [disclaimer: I work in the reman industry. I'm biased. Lasers tend to be more reliable than reman'd inks. With lasers, you can disassemble everything and replace the parts. With inkjets, it's more like an artform. If the electronics fail (which they often do), the cart is SOL]

  3. Not a bad idea... by eeg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...if only for the fact that Century Gothic looks better than Arial.

  4. Why not use Ecofont? by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Informative

    It has "holes" in the letters to save ink. So instead of 30% less ink usage this college would have about 45% less ink usage.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofont

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Why not use Ecofont? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      There is a good posting explaining why Ecofont doesn't offer any advantage over a light serif on Fontblog (only in German, here's an English summary). Fontblog is written by typography professionaly and can be trusted on these things.

    2. Re:Why not use Ecofont? by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why not use it?

      First, it's ugly. I mean really, helvetic'ish ugly. Second, the holes haven't been designed well - there's a high variability in color tone between the characters that gives an astigmatic dazzle effect and that make the text very fatiguing to read. Third, it doesn't scale well - magnifying by 20% increases the visibility of these flaws.

      --
      That is all.
  5. Re:from a professor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    um... you mean the "Review" tab in the MS Office ribbon?

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA012185621033.aspx

    my office uses this feature for internal review of documents before we deliver them to the client. You can track changes, add comments, and a whole lot more. I'm typically not a fan of Microsoft, but when forced to use it, I take full advantage of its tools.

  6. Re:email? by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you worked at a school? I do, and I run all the labs at a community college. These people are the villains of the forest. I'm not sure how much we spent per year on paper, but the local school district here (have a good friend who is a sys admin there) says they spend over 80k on paper every year - that's like 2 employees at the wages they pay people.

    I do know they bring paper here on huge pallets in massive semi trucks driven here by Georgia Pacific - that's usually a sigh that you have a problem.

    Needless to say - they print everything! Powerpoint slides, emails, webpages - you name it. I have a lab printer with 1262724 pages on its clock (I copied and pasted that from its status page). I have an open lab that goes through over 100 reams of paper per term (thats 50,000 sheets of paper) and over 15-20 toner cartridges per term, and a term is only 10 weeks.

  7. Re:.sig files... by c++0xFF · · Score: 2, Informative

    Of course. Examples from personal experience:

    1) Pictures (come on! who needs pictures in a sig?)
    2) Font style and size ... and bold text
    3) Color

    Color doesn't directly mean more ink, but it still costs more money to print (color being more expensive than B&W).

  8. Re:Ah by Idiomatick · · Score: 2, Informative

    A proper submission protol will show whether or not a file was recieved. File format is easy to fix; Require a certain file format, I fail to see a problem on the last one.

    Also, all your points on hospitals are void. You give an opinion but studies show otherwise. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_26_09.html

    Last one I agree with but I think you'd be greatly helped out by a good e-ink type tablet with stylus. The tech is there or getting there depending on how fussy you are.