Home users can pick between the free and premium versions of GreenPrint, according to the program’s Web site. Here is a description of the program excerpted from its site:
GreenPrint eliminates wasteful pages in any printout automatically, saving you
time and money, and maybe more importantly, saving trees, reducing greenhouse
gasses, and decreasing waste.
GreenPrint's patent-pending technology does
this by analyzing each page of every document sent to the printer and looking
for typical waste characteristics (like that last page with just a URL, banner
ad, logo, or legal jargon).
And it seems to make sense for businesses, for which the company has developed a special version. A savings calculator, also on the Web site, indicates a company with 1,000 employees will save $90,240, 1,410,000 pages, 156.7 trees and 504.9 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
The program was very easy to install and has some neat features and reports that track cost, paper, tree and carbon dioxide savings. When printing from Microsoft Word (or any other program), the print dialogue box that pops up has an option for GreenPrint (which becomes the default choice once the program is installed). Then, after clicking print, GreenPrint opens its own application which shows which pages are being printed and which are being removed. At this point a user can ensure nothing important will not be missed. Then, click a print button and the printing begins.
In case what I just wrote made no sense, here’s a link to a tutorial.
There are also options to determine what filters (for example, only a header and footer or less than five lines on page) GreenPrint uses to eliminate pages. And, the program includes a PDF writer.
This seems like an ideal application for people who frequently print information from the Web, whether for school projects, travel itineraries and tickets or in the office. It seems to be less useful, even detrimental, for printing word processing documents since one typically wants all of that text to be printed.
Here at Northeastern University, some students have been complaining about the implementation of a 400 page per person print quota this school year. Perhaps investing a little money in this program would quell some of their concerns while helping the environment.
And, finally, no one can complain about the company’s amusing commercial:
2 comments:
When printing from a Mac, I usually hit "preview" so that I can see which pages I need. Then I set up my print job accordingly. This does sound like a smoother solution.
I would open the print preview window and check this too, but having something pop up automatically ensures you never forget to do it. I’m not sure how this works on a Mac as I do not have one, but I have not seen anything that indicates it does not work.
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