Student proposes font change, saves millions

Whether you already have your own printer or plan to get one once you move out of on-campus housing, you are likely to face the harsh reality of outrageous ink prices in the near future. Black and white and color ink cartridges cost a pretty penny and can sometimes exceed the price of a printer itself.

The high cost is even drawing criminals: $1.5 million of printer ink was stolen from the United States government through false contract orders. At $4,285 a liter, this governmental printer ink was twice as expensive as Chanel No. 5 perfume.

These high ink prices have infiltrated the unlikely mind of a 14-year-old budding researcher. After noticing the excessive amount of paper handouts in school, Suvir Mirchandani wondered if there was a more efficient method of distributing information that was not at such a high cost to the environment and to the school financially. First, he looked into the alphabetical letters that were most often used in the handout, which were a, e, o, r and t. Next, he weighed each of the letters in different fonts, in order to determine which font used up the most ink.

The exciting conclusion? His school district could save over $20,000 simply by switching to Garamond font, which is a thinner font that uses up less ink.

Mirchandani, who is interested in issues concerning the environment, published his findings in the Journal for Emerging Investigators, but he did not stop there. He wanted to experiment on a larger scale. Naturally, he turned towards the government. This high school student found that if both state and national government adopted his suggestion of switching fonts, they could save an astounding $370 million.

The government has been trying to reduce its environmental impact over the past few years. In fact, government officials have dramatically decreased the amount of printed documents produced by the government, opting to post information on the internet instead. They have also started using recycled paper to print and are supporting the use ink-saving fonts.

Mirchandani wants his research to transcend the national government: he believes individuals will benefit from ink-saving fonts as well. In fact, if individuals are trying to get the most out of their ink cartridges they can make even more changes. Changing the printer quality settings to “fast draft” rather than “best” can save a significant amount of ink and is hardly noticeable in the printouts. Ink-savers can also download Ecofont, a font that has tiny, virtually invisible holes in each character. This can reduce printing costs by 20%. Finally, individuals interested in saving ink should turn printer off when not in use. This caps the ink cartridges, preventing them from drying out prematurely.

Although there may not be a single solution that eradicates wasteful spending on ink and paper, individual behavior changes, when combined with some national efforts, will certainly make a difference.