Tips & Tricks

Make Mine Grayscale

Printing is expensive, ya know? Especially when you're printing out web pages and such, since there is a lot of color ink involved.

Well, if you don't mind black & white, you should be able to set your printer to print in either a grayscale or B&W mode by default. You can later turn this option off if you decide you need a document printed in color.

How do you do it? Well, it varies from printer to printer since they tend to come with different software, but here's a typical scenario:

1. Click the Start button, Settings, Printer.

2. Next, find your printer and right-click it, selecting Properties from the resulting menu.

3. OK, here's where it may get a bit messy. You'll need to play around in the settings screen that comes up, looking for a setting to print in B&W or grayscale. This setting may be either on a tab or you may have to press a button to get at it.

For example, with my HP I hit the General tab, then a "Printing preferences" button. A new screen pops up and I hit the "Paper/Quality" tab and can set it to print B&W from there. Here's a couple of screen shots form my printer:

Again, I want to stress that this is how it works for my printer, your mileage may vary (in fact, it probably will). If you get really stuck, try your printer's help file. You know, when all else fails read the instructions.

Once you set it to B&W or grayscale, everything you print will be in B&W unless you set it back manually.

If that's too much of a commitment to the monochrome world for you, you can always print in grayscale / B&W on a case by case basis. When you go to print from whatever program, use the File menu, Print...

From there, hit the Properties button. If you play around in the resulting settings screen long enough, you should find a setting for grayscale. It's probably under a "Print quality" or similar category.

Again, if you go this route it's only going to be a temporary deal. If you want it permanently printing in grayscale unless you specify otherwise, you'll have to go to the printers folder as described above.

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