Managing your printing
Reducing your Paper Use
Using less paper
- Reduces your printing costs — you are charged for each sheet you print.
- Is environmentally responsible, and supports the Environmental Policies of the College and the Students’ Union.
There are several ways in which you can reduce the amount of paper you use for printing:
- You can print on both sides of the paper — this is the default on all the printers in the RB and NAB. Only change this if you're required to for a particular piece of work (including MPhil and PhD theses).
- You can print two pages of your document on one side of paper — while you cannot submit work printed like this, it can be useful when printing drafts.
- Ask yourself 'Is it necessary to print every draft of a piece of work?' Use the Preview function to review your work on screen before you print it out.
- Reprinting a whole essay because of minor corrections to one or two pages is expensive and wasteful - use the Page Range option in Word’s Print dialog to reprint just the pages which have changed. Minor last-minute corrections can also be made by hand!
- Printing email messages is something you should not need to do as a matter of course. The College's Email Policy for Students specifically prohibits printing copies of personal email messages, not related to your studies, in the RB.
- Printing online materials is usually not necessary. In any case, web pages often print very poorly and in a way that is wasteful of paper. If you really have to, consult our advice first to keep the paper used to a minimum.
- Don’t leave blank pages or large amounts of blank space in your document.
- Consider reducing margins to get more text on a page.
Controlling your Printing
Single- or Double-sided?
When you print on both PCs and Macs a dialog box appears on screen. The default setting is to print in black-and-white on both sides of a sheet of paper (known as 'duplex'). The settings are shown in drop-down lists - you can switch very easily by selecting another item from the list:
| PCs | Macs | |
|---|---|---|
| Black-and-white double-sided | bwlaser2 | Black and White Duplex |
| Black-and-white single-sided | BwLaser1 | Black and White Single Side |
| Colour single-sided | CoLaser1 | Colour Single Side |
| Colour double-sided | CoLaser2 | Colour Duplex |
Printing Two Pages on One Side
You can control how many pages are printed out on each side of a page. Printing two pages on one side is often still legible enough for a draft. Here's how to do it:
PCs: Print > click on the Properties/Preferences button > click on the Layout tab (you may need to click on each tab in case it has a different name) > set the number of pages per sheet to 2 > click OK.
Macs: Print > click on the arrow to the right of the Printer list > click on the Copies & Pages drop-down and select Layout > set the number of pages per sheet to 2 > click Print.