Thanks yet again to Kowai (seriously Shawn, I need to send you a complimentary tote bag or something for all the green ideas you’ve given me — oh, and P.S., love the new site design! Um, yeah, on with the sentence), who recently mentioned a site called Change the Margins.
It’s run by this woman who’s trying to convince people to decrease the margins on whatever they’re printing, in order to cram more words on each line and thus save paper. Obviously, the most important folks to convince are those who head up multinational corporations, especially ones with no recycling system in place, let alone a paperless policy.
But there’s no reason why we can’t all do this in our day-to-day printing jobs. And while I don’t exactly have control over the margins of my stories in the National Post, I can certainly fiddle with them when it comes to all the other stuff I write on my computer at home.
Could add to that list all the teachers/professors etc. who require double spacing on all papers.
Haha thanks, but don’t you dare send me a tote bag!
Unfortunately you can’t do that when someone sends a PDF document. Another idea is to double side your printing if your printer will allow it or print two on a page if your printer or eyesight will allow.
Usually, I only print if I need to read offline or make notes on the document for later action items. I just can’t type fast enough to keep up at a meeting.
I don’t need a tote bag either.
My profs require double spacing, but it is because they use the space to make corrections and comments. They also require our margins be one inch on all sides, which is a smaller margin than the standard settings in word, so I guess that’s *kind of* green.
In many instances you can also change line spacing to 1.5 instead of double spacing – it really makes a difference, but it’s still readable. Not where you’d be breaking the *rules* by doing it, but in many business instances it works just fine.
Also, I think you may have already mentioned this but change the printing to draft mode. I’ve done it at work none the wiser. My co-workers don’t care and I’ve showed a couple others how to do it too. Saves paper, ink, etc.
Changing the print to 11-pt font rather than 12-pt can make the difference, too. I’ve had term papers go down in page number thanks to that, and few people notice such a small change in font size.
For anything I print at home for my own use, I change the margins all to .5″ I also print on the back side of used paper using the draft setting. I haven’t convinced my sweetie yet to buy me a laptop so I don’t have to print out recipes.
Law firms need to be convinced of this. If you’ve ever received an invoice from a law firm, you know what I’m talking about. They routinely use two or more pages when one would do.
I am a graduate student in an Environmental Science program, and am frustrated nearly every day that the printer on my floor does not allow me to print double-sided OR to print 2 to a page, and that most of my professors specify double-spaced on one side of paper. Argh!
thanks so much for the shout out for the CHANGE THE MARGINS campaign. I’ve been looking at your site, and am happy to have been included. Your readers have great suggestions for additional ways to reduce paper waste.
The goal of the grassroots campaign is to get individuals to change their margins when possible (I realize school format requirements often make this impossible), and also to try to build a groundswell for larger companies to incorporate more efficient margins into their policies. And of course, to make it all as easy as possible. To that end, there’s a petition to Microsoft urging them to change the default settings in their software to .75″. If you haven’t done so already, would love it if you could sign it. Many thanks!
Tamara Krinsky