Paperless office? What paperless office? By the 21st century, weren't we all supposed to be reading everything on pocket-sized computers and using only wires or airwaves to move our business information around? OK, so that hasn't quite happened. In fact, today we're printing more than ever, unable to shake the notion that if an email message is important enough to read on the screen, it must be important enough to print out and file away or tack up on our cubicle wall.

Since we're clearly still paper junkies, it makes a lot of financial and environmental sense to know what to consider when shopping for a new printer.

Making your mark: the options
Basically, there are three kinds of computer printers: laser, inkjet, and impact.

Laser printers produce the sharpest images and print the most pages per minute, but they consume more energy than inkjet and impact printers because they have to generate high temperatures to bond the toner (the black powder in the replaceable cartridge) to the paper as part of a complex printing process. Even when they're in standby mode, they're using a substantial amount of energy, since they have to stay warm to prevent delays whenever someone sends a print job. For example, a typical black-and-white laser printer with an output speed of 35 pages per minute draws about 600 watts during peak operation, 100 watts in standby mode, and 10 watts in sleep mode.

Inkjet printers, in comparison, work by squirting ink onto paper through an array of tiny holes. They're slower, and the text they print isn't quite as crisp as laser-printed text, but they cost less up front, and they consume up to 90 percent less power than laser printers. One popular black-and-white inkjet printer typical of its class (the HP Business Inkjet 2300) draws only 70 watts during peak operation and less than a watt in sleep mode, though it prints just nine pages per minute at its highest-quality setting.

If you don't know what an impact printer is, you probably don't work in a warehouse. Impact printers, such as the dot-matrix and daisy-wheel devices that preceded inkjets, work like typewriters, striking the page through an inked ribbon. Because they can produce multiple copies, impact printers are used these days mainly for printing invoices. In active mode, they consume about as much electricity as inkjet printers.

So purely in terms of minimizing your electrical consumption, inkjet printers are the best way to go. Of course, there's more to it than that.

You are what you eat: the issue of consumables
Inkjet printers start at remarkably low prices-you can easily find one for less than $50 for your small office, and as noted above it'll be an energy miser. But you know what they say about giving away the razor and selling the blades. That's a good analogy for inkjet printers, little machines with a whale-size appetite for pricey ink cartridges. A typical inkjet cartridge for a black-and-white printer costs about $25, yet it yields only 450 pages; that adds up to a cost of 5.5 cents per page.

Laser printers are more expensive than inkjets, and they use far more electricity. But the toner cartridges that they use last much longer than inkjet cartridges: A $50 toner cartridge that will print 2,500 pages costs you a little more than 2.1 cents per page; a high-yield toner cartridge that costs $100 and prints 7,000 pages cuts that to about a penny and a half.

So lasers win this round.

Whether you opt for a laser or an inkjet, paying full price for a replacement cartridge makes as much sense as taking your car to the dealership for repairs rather than to a cheaper local mechanic. Look for remanufactured toner and inkjet cartridges, which cost 30 to 60 percent less than their original equipment manufacturer (OEM) counterparts. Any printer that uses a replaceable toner or inkjet cartridge should work just fine with a remanufactured version. And while it's true that remanufactured toner cartridges used to be a dicey proposition, today most meet OEM standards and deliver equivalent performance, print quality, and page yield. A remanufactured toner cartridge generally won't void your printer warranty unless it causes physical damage to the device, which is fairly unlikely.

It's possible to save even more by getting seriously hands-on. Refill kits let you replenish your inkjet cartridges yourself. The cost is a remarkably low $3 to $4 per refill, but there's a reason more people don't do it: Refilling is a potentially messy DIY project that involves vials of ink, syringes, and plastic gloves. Toner-cartridge refill kits are also available and offer comparable savings.

Inkjet printers and laser printers both come in black-and-white and color versions. If you choose color, you'll wind up paying more for refills, since you'll have to replace multiple shades of ink or toner.

And then there's the other big consumable: paper. If cutting costs is your sole concern, choose a duplex printer, which can print on both sides of a sheet of paper; you'll cut your paper consumption nearly in half. According to the U.S. government's Federal Energy Management Program, anyone who's printing at least 6,000 pages per month should pony up for a duplex printer; the savings on paper should pay for the extra cost of the device within two years. (You may also be able to add duplexing units to your existing printers.)

Besides duplexing, the only practical way to save money on paper is to go with the cheap stuff. Of course, if you're thinking with your conscience as well as your wallet, consider the example of Vermont. Since 1997, the state's government has depended on 100-percent post-consumer recycled paper that's manufactured using a chlorine-free process. Following suit might provide the same satisfaction as a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and you'll end up spending only a little more.

Power points: ration the electricity
The best way to reduce your printer's energy consumption is to turn it off when you're not using it-at the end of the day, for example. If your printer doesn't have an on/off switch (some cost-conscious manufacturers are eliminating this feature and hoping you won't miss it) plug the machine into a power strip and flip that off at the end of the day.

The rest of the time, make sure that standby and sleep modes are enabled. Sure, most printers aren't in constant use, but they are consuming electricity whenever they're on-and often that's around the clock. Set it to power down after a short amount of time.

The fewer printers you have, naturally, the less electricity you'll use. Which leads us to the subject of office entitlement. Every middle manager wants a personal printer, but it makes more financial sense to connect several suits to a single networked printer. Make them walk a few steps to pick up their printouts, and if an aversion to exercise compels them to print fewer unnecessary documents, so much the better.

Reach for the star: certified efficiency
The EPA does much of your work for you by testing printers and labeling with its familiar blue Energy Star logo those that meet strict power-consumption criteria. Energy Star-qualified laser printers use one-quarter of the energy that regular lasers do; they also print in duplex mode, reducing paper costs. And since they're more energy-efficient, they run cooler (which cuts your air-conditioning costs) and last longer, since excessive heat leads to increased wear and tear.

Part of the energy savings is the result of mandatory sleep-mode settings. In order to earn the blue badge, a printer that spits out 30 to 45 pages per minute has to go into sleep mode after less than 60 minutes of idling, and must consume less than 40 watts while napping.

A new Energy Star specification for imaging equipment, including printers, went into effect on April 1, 2007. You can find a complete list of Energy Star-qualified printers here (PDF).

• Ink: To calculate your annual cost of ink or toner, simply divide the number of pages you plan to print by the number of pages produced per cartridge. This will tell you how many cartridges you'll buy in a year; now multiply this number by the cost per cartridge.
• Electricity: This one's harder to calculate, since printers cycle in and out of sleep modes and take varying amounts of time to print. But in general, a laser printer will use about five times as much electricity as an inkjet.
• The bottom line: If you print very little, choose an inkjet; they're still the best choice for low-capacity printing. Invest in a laser printer only for high-volume use or shared use.

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