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Think Before You Print

Typeface can save ink

When Gina McKoy learned she could save Duke money just by changing the font of the documents she prints, she decided to try it.

McKoy, a staff specialist in the Staff and Family Programs office, read an online news story about a university in Wisconsin that hoped to save as much as $10,000 a year by switching to a default font (a style of typeface) that uses less ink when printing.

"Since ink costs thousands of dollars per year, this could result in a big savings," said McKoy, who changed her default font to Century Gothic and persuaded a couple officemates to do the same. "It's a potentially painless way to lessen your carbon footprint if you do a lot of printing."

Ink-friendly fonts are just one idea Duke is investigating as part of an effort to trim printing costs across the institution, said Carl McMillon, director of data center and computer lab services in Duke's Office of Information Technology.

Another recommendation from the Duke Administrative Reform Team is expanding employee use of ePrint, a service that allows users to print from any computer on the Duke network to any ePrint-designated OIT or Duke Libraries printer. To use the service, the user must install the ePrint client, submit the print job to a queue and swipe a DukeCard to pick up the job at any of about 150 stations in 45 buildings across campus.

The ePrint service, which will be upgraded this summer, is available to all Duke employees. Beginning this fall, all ePrint stations will default to printing on both sides of a sheet of paper.

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"It's on-demand printing where you need to be," McMillon said. "In some departments, every office has a printer. Some managers consider a printer essential so they don't have to worry about someone else seeing confidential documents. We want to move to more of a work-group printing model and reduce the number of devices."

Part of the challenge, McMillon said, is encouraging users to think before they print. "So much is available electronically, but paper is a part of the way we've always done things," he said. "It takes a commitment and discipline to not default to paper."

To find out more about ePrint or printing at Duke in general, contact the OIT Service Desk at help@oit.duke.edu or 684-2200.