Statistics show that the dream of the paperless office due to increased computer usage was just that – only a dream. In fact, paper usage has increased as more people have computers and printers attached to them. Increased computer printing impacts us due to extra paper and toner costs, and the needless cutting of trees to create all that extra paper. Here are the top three ways to easily reduce the amount of paper you print from your computer each day.

Before hitting the print button, check to see what is going to be printed. Almost every program has a Print Preview function that allows you to see what will be printed on each page. Many times you will find only a single line or two has run on to the last page. By changing the margins or scaling factor in the program, you can save that mostly blank last page.

The Print Preview function also allows you to identify which pages contain the information you need to print. Once you have identified the pages that need to be printed, the second step is to print only the pages you need. You can print a page range in almost all programs. In the Print dialog box (usually displayed when you click File -> Print), there is an entry box to enter a page range to print instead of the usual default of all pages. In this entry box, you can use the comma (,) to separate individual pages and you can use the dash (-) to indicate a range of pages. For example, the entry of "5,7,9-11" would mean print page 5, page 7 and pages 9 to 11. Enter only the pages you identified as needing to be printed using the comma and dash as necessary (do not enter the quote marks shown in the above example). In some programs you can print pages in reverse order by entering a page range in reverse. So entering "11-9" would print page 11, then page 10, then page 9.

Some programs allow you to print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper. If you use a font size of 12 point (the default for many people), the document is still very readable and cuts your paper usage in half. Utilities are available that allow any program to use multiple page per sheet functionality. This will also dramatically reduce the space it takes to file the paper you print.

If you are concerned about the environment, these tips allow you to make a difference in the amount of paper you use starting today.

Dave Paradi’s Think Outside the Slide™ approach helps presenters get results by showing them how to quickly create effective PowerPoint presentations. He is the co-author of “Guide to PowerPoint”, part of the Prentice Hall Series in Advanced Business Communication. He offers a free PowerPoint e-course, newsletter and articles on his web site at www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.

©MMV Dave Paradi