Greenprint: Software that Saves
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.06
When I saw this post on Hugg from Greenliving about new software that eliminates wasted pages I yelled YES!! so loudly that the cat ran away. It should be a standard feature on any computer: "I want to see what is going to print, I want to take out the crap I don't care about, and I don't want to waste paper". Unfortunately it is not. Greenprint software lets you see the whole document, easily click on what you want to keep and what you want to disappear, and then prints it. Not only does this save forests; it also saves money on paper, disposal and ink cartridges. If you don't need paper at all, it has a PDF generator so that you can send it straight to your computer without paying for Adobe.
We had a bit of trouble getting started; the download site was very slow, and the free 14 day trial version said my time was up, but an email to support was quickly answered and soon I was up and running. We note that last night the site said "We have found a problem in the latest build that is preventing people from installing GreenPrint, and we are working really hard to fix it, and hope to have it available again later today." so if that note is still up, wait to download the software.
You set Greenprint as your default printer and print; highlight the pages or images you want to delete, and then print to your favourite printer. A few extra seconds, a good look at what you are getting and thats it. It even comes with a little meter to tell you how much paper and ink you have saved to make you feel better.
In this open source era we have almost forgotten about paying for software, and as we said, every printer driver should do this as a matter of course. It is a bit big at 12.9 meg and a bit slow on the printing, but hey, it is version 1.0. Nonetheless at the end of 14 days I suspect I will be shelling out 25 bucks for this. The meter may even indicate that it has paid for itself already. Windows only. ::GreenPrint
This is a good feature. I'd also note that this is Windows only. Mac users running OS X have had the ability to print directly to PDF for quite some time. Another thing that I do to save paper when I print is, when possible, print "two up" or "four up" which prints two or four pages on one side of a sheet of paper. Combine that with duplexing, and I get up to 8 pages of info on one sheet of paper. For me, this is still readable.
Nice idea - too bad it's Windows only.
For Mac OS X users, if you don't already know this, PDFs can be created from ANY document using the Print command - just look for the PDF button in the lower left corner of the box that pops open when you go to print a document.
For editing PDF documents there is a nice shareware program called PDFClerk:
http://www.sintraworks.com/
It allows you to manipulate PDFs - including deleting pages.
And everyone should choose two-sided printing if you printer is set up for it.
Fineprint is doing this (almost) since years ... but Greenprint ist definitely cheaper.
For printing directly to a PDF file, there's PDFCreator:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Completely free.
I would also recommend taking a look at the Canon Pixma line of printers. Most models offer automatic duplex printing (printing on both sides of a sheet of paper), and the printer driver also allows Page Layout printing, i.e. reducing a page in size and printing more than one page on a single sheet of paper.
Another option is that many programs offer a "print preview" feature and a "print by page" option. What I do at work is use the print preview to see exactly what pages I want then only print those specific ones via the print by page option.
There are various free PDF converters for windows (I don't know how good they are, though). For example: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
Openoffice.org of course has excellent PDF export and MS Office 2007 will have that as well. Almost all Linux apps can print to PDF, just like Mac OS X.
All printer drivers have the ability to print just certain pages, you just have to look at the document and decide which pages you want to print before you go to the print dialog.
And when I go to print something I almost always use print preview first to see if there will be one page printed with just a few lines. If that is the case, I either cut out unneeded header or footers or I shrink the font size.
If there are large blocks of text I don't need to print I cut them out. If the original document is needed, I then close without saving (or save as another filename).
This can be done even with HTML documents if you have a decent WYSIWYG HTML editor, such as the free Nvu. Save the complete page (w/ images) and then open it with Nvu and cut out the parts you don't want. Or if you need the text but not the images, structure, etc. just copy and paste the text you want into Wordpad.
Of course, the best way to save paper is to print fewer documents in the first place. At home, I hardly ever print anything now. It often seems nice to have an actually paper in your hand, but it is rarely needed these days.
I have been using PDF995 for years to make PDF's and often use print preview, but this software is more sophisticated than previewing and then deciding what pages to print. it eliminates images and is really easy to use. I suspect most people just hit the print button; with this software people it is a lot easier. I really do think it makes life easier.
You can SAVE MUCH MORE paper by using the fineprint application
www.fineprint.com
it is also a pre-printer but it shrinks pages to fit on one page of paper. Really easy to use and the smaller print is usually easy to read. it is free if you don't mind the single-line brand printed just in margin of the page
Did It support all kinds of printer?