Printing Tips to Reduce Paper Use

Double-sided printing

Printing on both sides of your paper is not only resourceful – it’s easy! If you are connected to a printer/photocopier, follow these steps to double-side:

1. Open the document you need to print, select File in the task bar and in the pull down menu select Print.
2. In the Print pop-up box, select  printer. Click on the Properties button.
3. In the Properties pop-up box, select the Paper/Output tab.
4. Under 2 Sided Print, click on 2 Sided Print in the pull down menu. Press OK.

Print your document and feel good that you have used 100 % less paper. This setting will not be saved, so you will need to follow these steps each time you print. The Sustainability Office is investigating having “2 Sided Print” set as the default for all printing on the  printers/photocopiers.

Printing multiple pages of a document on one page

To use less paper when printing a multi-page document, you can print several pages on one sheet of paper. Microsoft Word shrinks the pages to the appropriate sizes and groups them on the sheet.

1. On the File menu, click Print.
2. Under Zoom, click the option you want in the Pages per sheet box.

For example, to print a four-page document on one sheet of paper, select 2 pages per sheet and select 2-sided print – flip on short edge (on the Paper/Output tab in Printer Properties) to print 2 pages on the front, and 2 pages on the back of the same sheet of paper.

This can also be done in PowerPoint by clicking Print, and then under Handouts, selecting the number of slides you want to print per page.

Preview a page before printing

1. On the File menu, click Print Preview.
2. Use the buttons on the toolbar to look over the page or make adjustments before printing.
   

Edit text in print preview

1. On the File menu, click Print Preview.
2. Click the text in the area you want to edit. Microsoft Word zooms in on the area.
3. Click Magnifier when the pointer changes from a magnifying glass to an I-beam, make your changes to the document.
4. To return to the original magnification, click Magnifier, and then click the document.
5. To exit print preview and return to the previous view of the document, click Close.