Printers: Save money on printing Save paper when printing

If your printer has auto-duplexing you can set the printer up to automatically print on both sides of a page, saving paper before you start.

Simple changes to settings can help you reduce the number of pages you print and save paper. 

Here are a few top tips to print less pages.

Auto-duplex printers reviewed – find the best printer with auto-duplexing so you can print on both sides of the page.

Print two pages side-by-side or specific pages from a document.

Specify pages

Reduce the number of pages you print by fitting two pages on one side of paper.

Click File > Print. Under ‘Zoom', click Pages per sheet and select how many pages you want to appear on one side of paper.

You can also avoid printing every page when you only need a section from a document.

Click File > Print. Under ‘Page Range’, click Pages and type in the specific pages you need separated by a comma (1,3,7) or a range or pages using a hyphen (1-7).

Save paper

Shrink to fit one page

This tip is useful if only a few lines of text spill over onto an extra page.  

You can save paper by making the text fit to fewer pages.

Click File > Print Preview. Click the Shrink to Fit icon > Close.

How to print to PDF

Do you need to print at all? If you want to be able to view a Windows document on the move you could save it as a PDF to view on a tablet PC, smartphone or Kindle.  

Free PDF software - such as CutePDF - lets you save a document as a PDF for free.

Once you've downloaded the software, when you have document open in a Windows application Click File > Print. Then select CutePDF from the printer’s drop-down menu to save the file as a PDF. You can then send this PDF to other devices.

Excel 2010 print selection

How to print selected areas in Excel

Only need to print a small portion of an Excel spreadsheet? Highlight the area in your spreadsheet. Click File > Print.

In Excel 2010 In the Settings, go to Print Active Sheets, click on the drop-down arrow and then select Print selection to print only the part you highlighted.

In Excel 2007 Go to print what, select Selection and your highlighted cells will be printed.

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