Color

What’s the difference between color and black-and-white printing? It may seem like a simple question on the surface. But when it comes to everyday office printing, there are more differences between the two than you may realize—in cost, technology, functionality and other factors—and more similarities, too. If you’re thinking about incorporating more color into your office printing environment, you need to understand all these differences and similarities in order to make effective (not to mention cost-effective) choices.

“To put color print pricing in context, in 1994 a typical departmental-sized black-and-white laser printer would cost you around $5000 with a per-page price of about 8 or 9 cents. For less than that cost today, you can have a high-quality color printer. The idea that color is too expensive for in-house, everyday use is as antiquated as that 1994 black-and-white laser printer.”

–Don Jones, The Definitive Guide to Office Color Printing continue reading...

One way to control your costs for color printing is to charge them back to those who are doing the printing. Charging back these costs can help reduce operational costs in two ways.

1. Internal users who are billed for all or some of their color printing are likely to be more aware of, and more mindful about, how much they print—and, as a result, more judicious in their use of printing resources. This can result in less usage.

2. By billing external users, organizations can eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, the color printing and copying costs that they normally absorb on behalf of their clients or patrons.

Opportunities to charge back color printing In addition to charging back color printing costs to internal and external users, organizations can charge back by group or individual. Opportunities
for charging back might include: continue reading...

• departments within a larger organization
• offices in remote locations
• clients of professional firms
• individual users of institutional resources