Page life provided for an ink cartridge is based on lab tests done following ISO standards. When these tests are performed the same page is printed continuously on standard settings using standard A4 paper, unless it is specifically a photo cartridge where they may use alternative settings. Keep in mind, there are countless variables when printing at home or work, including, but not limited to, cleanings, printer clean cycles, saturation, etc.
The tests are based on 5% Page Coverage for Ink and Toner Explained.
When you print at home you may print full letters, images, photos, therefore printing pages that cover 25%, 50% up to 100% of the page will drastically decrease this provided page yield.
Recommend tips for extending your cartridge life:
Change your print settings
One of the easiest ways to extend the life of your ink cartridges is to switch your print settings to their most economical settings. Most printers offer several levels of print quality ranging from fine to normal to fast normal. Changing to Draft or Fast Normal and from colour to greyscale (aka black and white) will create a legible document while using less ink. Just go to Properties or Preferences, depending on your printer, in the print menu and make the switch.
Take advantage of print preview
Viewing your documents in Print Preview gives you the chance to check your work on-screen and make any changes before sending it to print. Saving documents electronically, such as a PDF (portable document format), will make for ink-less distribution.
Disregard the low ink warning
Don't hurry to change your ink cartridge at the first sign of the low ink warning. Though that is not to say you shouldn't have a new cartridge on hand. Instead we suggest keeping an eye on your prints, wait until the quality of output begins to diminish, this is ideal time to change over.
WARNING - Never let a cartridge run dry.
Keep the nozzles clean
If you see white, faint or broken lines in your document chances are the print nozzles are clogged. Most printers have built-in maintenance programs which are designed to fix quality issues, look for printhead clean/deep clean/nozzle clean. Also when using a new cartridge run the Alignment Program too to ensure cartridges are correctly loaded.
If the built-in programs do not work you can attempt to manually unclog them:
- Take a few paper towels and fold them into a thick rectangle. Wet the paper towels with warm water and place on a protected flat surface.
- Place the ink cartridge printhead side down on the damp paper towels. Be careful not to touch the chip or the printhead with your hands as the oils on your fingers can cause damage to these sensitive parts.
- After a minute or so, lift the ink cartridge off the paper towel. If there are clear lines of ink on the paper towels, pat the ink cartridge dry with some more paper towels or a lint-free cloth, put it back in the printer and print a test page.
If this doesn’t help, you may have to soak the ink cartridge.
- Put the cartridge printhead side down in a bowl of warm.
- Wait a few minutes and check to see if any ink has flowed into the water.
- If ink has flowed into the water, take some paper towel, dry the cartridge and try it again in the printer.
- If it hasn’t, you can take a cotton bud soaked in warm water and rub it gently along the printhead to help unclog the nozzles.
Use different fonts
Opt for smaller font sizes in your documents while avoiding typefaces with thick lettering. Fonts such as Arial and Times Roman use less ink.
Adjust your resolution and image size
Resolution is the number of dots per inch (dpi) in a graphic, or photograph. The greater the dpi, the larger the file size and the more ink it takes to print. So how do you know what resolution to use? In most cases 72 dpi is sufficient for an inkjet or laser printer. Depending on the image and its intended purpose you could go as high as 200 or 300 dpi. If you are printing from a word processing program choosing Draft or Fast Normal in the Print Properties or Preferences menu is roughly equivalent to 72 dpi. If you are printing directly from a photo editing program such as Photoshop, you can change the resolution and the image size from the Image menu.
Protect your cartridges
If your printer won't be used for a while, put the cartridges in a plastic, sealable bag so the ink won't dry up. Please handle the cartridges carefully, covering skin, clothing and surfaces when handling any ink cartridge.