Cost of Printing a PDF at home?

[johnsemlak]

Has anyone ever worked out an average cost of printing a PDF at home (per page obviously)?. Assuming a black-and-white version.

I don't print PDFs much, so was just wondering.

 

[MadScientist]

I haven't but it is going to be highly dependent on the type of printer you have. Different printers have very different per-page print costs.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Figure out how much a black ink cartridge/toner cartridge is for your printer....then divide that amount by how many pages the cartridge is good for.

Thats your price per page.

Multiply by how many pages you are printing.

Also, to save money, you can have a PDF print "sideways" so that two pages fit on each side of the paper (this is what I do to avoid huge piles of paper sitting around) and use less ink than if you had printed full size.

Either way, its not going to be more than a couple of bucks per book. Add in the cost of a giant box of plastic paper sleeves to put the document in and a binder and you have yourself some easily accessable home-made documents.

DS

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Be sure to use a laser printer, and not an ink-jet printer. Generally, laser printers get several times the amount of pages per dollar of cartridge costs, so it'll even out in the end.

IMO, a home computer needs two printers: A laser printer for most jobs, and an ink-jet printer for color jobs.

 

[Fast Learner]

Or if you have a gob of money to spend, a color laser gives you the best of both worlds. Certainly the best investment in computer equipment I ever made.

 

[Jakathi]

lol

i just use the SRD online stuff to save time when i write up a character.
ahhh... the joys of cut and paste.

 

[CCamfield]

Sometimes, in order to cut down on paper used, I print in landscape (2 sheets to a side) and on both sides. So that quarters the amount of paper involved! I do have a laser printer (a plus) but on the minus side I haven't been able to successfully print like this in a big print job - I can manage basically to get it to print on the back of the previous page and the front of the next at a time, essentially 4 sheets.

It can be a hassle, and sometimes I make mistakes, but for instance I did this for all of In The Saddle (c. 100 pages) and as a result it's a pleasant-sized duotang, instead of most of a binder.

P.S. Sabathius, you also need to take into account the cost of the paper! Not that it's likely to be much, but probably a cent a page or so.

 

[Krieg]

Go to Tom's Hardware Guide and do a search on the Make/Model of printer you have. If they have done a review of it in the past, they will have included an estimated cost per page in the review.

BTW very good idea CCamfield!

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yes, yes, gotta pay for paper too...

Printing on both sides of the paper is called duplexing, and it CAN be a pain if your printer doesn't do that automatically. I don't think there is a way in Adobe to print 1-2, 5-6, 9-10, etc... all the way through a document then put the paper back in and print 3-4, 7-8, etc....that would be hand if you were trying to print 4 pages per page without a LOT of hassle.

I am fortunate in that my job is to work on $3000 color laser printers all day, so in order to do my job I have to do a stack of test prints. A LOT of those test prints end up being PDF files that I take home and read and store like a packrat.

DS

 

[astralpwka]

I don't think this is perfect, but here's a pretty close price comparison of what it costs me to print a pdf. This involves a Tektronix Full Color Laser Printer.

Paper .01 a sheet (depending on the quality of paper, this varies wildly)

.01 to .09 per sheet for ink depending on the amount of color. All b&w negates this cost. Maintenance kit runs me about .01 a sheet.

.20 for the comb binding. I bought a used comb binding system for $25 off a co-worker.

.04 for the cardstock cover.

Fairly inexpensive.