Here is one that drives me completely crazy.

All printer cartridges have a page yield, the number of pages you can expect print with a cartridge.  But, page yields are not based on printing a full page or the number of a certain size of photos you can print (disclaimer: some manufacturers now publish page yield in terms of the number of 4×6 inch photos you can print), they are based upon printing 5% of a page. How on earth does someone determine 5% of a page, and who decided that page yields would be based on 5%?

Fortunately we have some answers!

First let’s talk about the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO is a non-governmental, international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Despite its claim to be non-governmental, the ISO’s ability to set standards that often become law makes it more powerful than most non-governmental organizations. This is the group that decided that printer page yield would be based on printing 5% of a page. In doing so, the ISO put forth a document that depicted their standard. This is what 5% looks like:

Consumers have purchased printer cartridges for years without every really understanding what page yield actually meant. Vendors are just as guilty. They’ve relayed page yields to consumers without really understanding what they meant. Well, it is time for that to change!

Thanks to our good friends at  Stinkyink (if you live in the U.K., you should buy from these guys) we now have some additional visual references of what we can expect from our printer cartridges.

The “Stinkers” took the ISO’s demonstration one step further. They decided to do some cartridge testing using different fonts, font sizes, lines, and border. Their goal was to determine if these kinds of things had an effect on page yield. Their work was judged on how many words could be printed within the 5% page area. The more words printed, the more efficient the font, the more ink you could save.

Below are visual results for the fonts tested, Calibri (size 11), Arial (size 11), Times New Roman (size 11), Tahoma (size 11), and Comic Sans (size 11).

As you can see, using the Calibri (size 11) font will give you the most bang for your cartridge buck. It gave the most number of printed words. Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma, and Comic Sans followed, in order of number of words printed.

So, what does this mean for your printing habits?

Well, if you are in to ink conservation and maximizing the money you spend on printer cartridges, you should do the following:

1. Always print text with a Calibri or Arial font, size 11 or lower. The smaller the font size you can use the better. Make sure your work can still be read though!

2. Stop using fancy, over sized, bold fonts. Every page you print is costing you more than it should.

3. Avoid using any unnecessary lines or borders.

4. If you won’t be giving your print out to someone, use the draft print mode on your printer.

5. Only bold and underline your text when necessary.

6. Black cartridges are typically less expensive, so print text using your black cartridge as much as possible.

If you have any cartridge maximizing tips to share, or reactions to this post, take a minute and let me know. Thanks!