Every writer with a conscience (in either an environmental or an economic sense) has cringed a bit at the sight of draft manuscripts piled in the recycling bin. Some writers have gone paperless, and do all their editing on-screen. But for many, that just doesn't cut it. They have to feel that paper in their hands and scribble all over it with various colors of ink, making grand swooshes and merciless strike-outs. For those writers, the paper is willingly sacrificed, but what about the toner?
Saving Money When Printing Drafts
Editors working for professional publications often specify a certain typeface for submissions. That's fine, but a writer gets to choose the font for drafts right up until the final version of a manuscript is saved or printed for submission. For draft editing and revisions, it seems logical to use a font that saves the most toner, so long as it is readable.
Based on appearance, some fonts clearly use less toner than others. For example, American Typewriter Light uses less than Ariel at a given size. Alternatively, the dedicated proofer could don magnifying goggles and work on drafts printed with an 8-point font. Not likely.
Another option for the frugal writer is a font that fits more words per page. This won't save toner but it does conserve paper. One such font, available since early 2007, is EverGreen from GreenPrint. EverGreen reduces paper use by 15-20% (compared to Arial, Times New Roman and Helvetica) while maintaining readability. EverGreen is available for MacOS X, and Windows at the single-user price of $10 (U.S.) What else is there?
Ecofont, the Font With Holes In It
Announced in early 2009, Ecofont, is specially designed to reduce toner use. Developed "on a hunch" by Colin Willems of the Dutch company Spranq, Ecofont looks much like any other san serif font—until one takes a closer look. The font has holes in it. Where there is a hole, there is no toner. It's a simple idea that works.
When printed at a typical usable size like 12-point, Ecofont is easily readable. The text is slightly less black in appearance than usual, being more of a dark grey. It's actually quite pleasant to look at. However, when observed with those aforementioned magnifying goggles—sure enough, the letters are full of tiny holes. According to the company, a toner savings of up to 20% is achieved.
Best of all, since it is based on the open source font Vera Sans, Ecofont is free (although there is a reasonably priced enterprise edition). Downloadable versions are available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux. Ecofont works in Microsoft Office 2004 and 2007, OpenOffice, AppleWorks and Scrivener. It might not work from within other word processing programs.
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