presentations4you

It always amazes me when I see a manager automatically printing in color slides that he or she has just received, or when color printing is almost automated when checking slides during preparation. What quality output do you need? Ninety percent of the time, black and white printing will do the job. Heavily colored pages can cost as much as 3 times more than lightly colored ones and 10 times more than B&W.

The average price of color printers has reduced significantly over the years. Still, you really have to consider the total cost of ownership, as the cost of ink cartridge replacement is often the determining factor. With fast speeds and impressive print quality, we are tempted to press the color print button too extensively, forgetting about the cost. Color printer manufacturers sell their machines by advertising increased comprehension, easier reading, increased message retention, and other marketing bling-bling. But shouldn't we be more careful in selecting color output?

Color is a luxury and should be limited to printing out final documents for handouts for specific situations, like a presentation to customers. Some corporations are now removing color printers from certain locations and putting in place simpler, faster and more cost-effective B&W printers. Let's settle for monochrome output!

Another tip: to reduce ink consumption by printing PowerPoint slides, choose grayscale or pure B&W in the print dialog box (Mac: print/output menu). Your background will disappear and white text will become black. See color and grayscale output results below.