Formatting Green

Has it ever happened to you that you went to pick the print outs you sent and you had to sort through a pile of print outs that had been sent by some unknown users and are now without an owner?

Has it ever happened to you that when you went to pick the print outs, you came to know that the input tray was empty and then when you put papers therein, a long que of prints started that nobody was there to claim?

Has it ever happened to you that while you sent a print in a hurry, only after picking it up you realized that a single text  line had over-flown to the next page and that the whole document would have to be reprinted?

Well, this happens to me every day, and I thought, this must be happening in all offices all the time. This prompted me to write this blog entry and to share with you some tips that I found useful.

First of all, we print of paper, and papers are made of trees and any paper we are able to save is a step towards greener world. So we should look upon this not as a mere skill but as a responsibility. With this attitude we would be able to have a conscious approach towards handling the printouts.

So, here are few tips:

• Ask yourself, is this print necessary. Does anyone would have a copy that probably wouldn’t be read again and just filed and can I get that copy?
• Whenever sending the printout, have a look how it would print (print preview). This saves the last row of text from flowing into next page and also help us columns printing separately.
• Use headers and footers in documents. This helps in relocating the documents if the paper gets stuck in printer and the print has to be re-sent. It helps us find the owner of document in most cases and arrange the papers if they get mixed up. (trust me, in offices such thing happen daily). Using document title, page number, total number of pages and print time and date is a very good exercise.
• Use both sides of paper to print whenever possible. While printing on both sides (duplex printing as is called in many cases) use mirror margins which help align the printouts.
• Convert the text to adobe readable format for online reading. There are many free software that let you convert your documents into PDF files which are easy to read and do not have to be reformatted if page setups differ from PC to PC.
• PowerPoint presentations should be printed using handout view and 4-6 slides per page. This helps in identifying any inconsistencies that might be there. Many people take full printout as one slide per page which can be avoided.

I hope you will find this useful and share with others – for a greener tomorrow!!

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