Tips for successful printing

1. Make sure you set your page settings to use the correct sized paper. A4 is usually the default setting.
   
2. Use the Print Preview function before printing.
   This may save you printing something out again because your images don't fit on the page properly, or you print an extra page with only a website address on it.
   
3. Reduce page margins as much as possible.
   If your last page only has a couple of lines of text on it, you might be able to squeeze it into the page before.
   
4. Check that you have chosen the right printer for your document
   If you only want to print in black or white, you wouldn't want to use a colour printer as it will be more expensive.
   
5. Ensure that the page orientation (eg: landscape or portrait) of your document matches the page orientation in the printer options or properties.
   
6. Make sure you know where the printers are before printing - you don't want to waste time looking for your output.
   
7. If you send a print job to the printer, and it does not print, log into your my.monash portal to see if you have run out of quota. This information will be found in the right hand column of the page under the Printer heading.
   
8. If your document has not printed for a while please delete it before trying another printer. This will avoid you being charged twice for the same job. To delete files from the print queue, go to Start > Settings > Printers and Faxes. You should see your own print job in this list. Select your print job by right-clicking on it, and choose to Delete Document. This will remove your job from the print queue, and you will not be charged for it.
   
9. Log out when you have finished using the computer so that other people can't use your print credit.
   
10. When in a Library, find out which printers can be used with a Library Print/Copy Card - some Libraries have networked printers as well.
    
11. Do not print large areas of colour unless you really have to. Also, avoid printing large areas of black. This may result in damaging the printer.
    
12. Choose fonts that are "common" or simple - more exotic fonts can make your documents much larger and take longer to print.
    
13. When possible, choose to print on both sides of the page (called "duplex") to save paper. Duplex printing costs exactly the same as normal printing.
    
14. Some programs let you print more than one page on a single sheet of paper. This will save you money, and help conserve paper.
    
15. When printing lecture slides from PowerPoint, choose to print "Handouts" instead of "Slides". You could print up to 9 slides on one sheet of paper.
    
16. Don't print emails unless you really need to.
    
17. If you must print very long documents, try printing them a few pages at a time. Large PDF files take a long time to print, and may cause older printers to crash.