What the Font?
March 14, 2011
(bookmark)

Want to switch to the Century Schoolbook and wondering what the font will do to your ink costs? Well, wonder no longer, the slide-rule nerds at Inkfarm.com have come to the rescue with our handy-dandy ink-usage calculator, below. Just select the font you're using now, and the font you're thinking of using - and find out what the font will save (or cost) you in ink.

And you said we haven't done anything for you lately!

Our specific recommendations for ink-saving fonts are here.


  10 Comments

Red    8.01.11

This article's great.

Monik     6.25.12

All of these artleics have saved me a lot of headaches.

Bryn    10.18.11

This is potentially very valuable but what is 'coverage factor'? I am keen to distinguish between how the font spreads across the page and the amount of toner (ink) required to make the marks.

Inkfarm Mike     4.24.12

It's a number that's proportional to the amount of ink used to print a given piece of text. Its measured in units of area, something like square inches. So if font X covered one square inch of paper in printing a certain paragraph and font Y covered 2 square inches of ink in printing the same paragraph, then font Y would have twice the coverage factor and use 100% more ink.

CarlH    10.20.11

Okay on the Century Schoolbook font, but say the recipient of your email does not have that font, how is it going to look on the other end? What font will their computer pick to compensate for the Century Schoolbook font?

tylerg     12.13.11

Century Schoolbook is an accepted font in HTML 4 so it should show up in an email. And if you are wanting to make something more ink efficient to print you can change everything to Century Schoolbook in a program like Microsoft Word or Open Office before you print it.

green pdf    1.18.12

according your own tool, "Calibri" should be considered more than Century Schoolbook, or I don't get the tool ?

BTW the recommendations font link is dead.

David     11.28.12

You have to keep in mind that there is a difference in the size of the font's as calibri is a very small font, that could be compared tot a 2 point smaller I.e. Ecofont. Compare Ecofont to calibri 12 to 12 point and calibri is alot Better, compare it to a 10 point Ecofont and calibri is a lot worse

Thomas    8.07.12

Century Gothic is reputed to be a very efficient ink saving font and its little bother Century Schoolbook still more efficient. If I look at the result given by the calulator, Arial is more efficient than Century Gothic and a little bit less efficient than Century Schoolbook. This is contrasting with the results of the test shown on http://blog.printer.com/2009/04/printing-costs-does-font-choice-make-a-difference/ (The curious thing is that for the other fonts mentionned by Printer.com the results are more or less consistent with the ones of your calculator). Is there a logical explanation to these really different results? Thank you in advance for your explanations

Ditto     9.03.12

Interested in this also - this one comparison doesn't seem to match.

Gero    11.20.12

If I choose "Calibri (body)" instead of "Calibri", the calculator says I'll save 65%. Why?

Type a Screen Name     6.27.13

Ridiculous - these two fonts are the same!

I like Calibri.     6.06.14

"Calibri" is much thicker than "Calibri (body)", but they are the same font style. "Calibri (body)" is also called "Calibri Light".

When "Calibri Light" is in bold, it looks messy and becomes difficult to read. This is because the letters become too close together. As an alternative, change the font to "Calibri" which is thicker and neater.

Also, when you're writing the text body, use "Calibri Light" because "Calibri" is just too thick looking. When typing, you may not be able to see a significant difference, but you will after it's been printed.

KBob    6.27.13

I'm trying to work out what to switch our work default font to. Despite the fact that Century Gothic or Century Schoolbook are widely recommended to save ink, according to this calculator, our current default - Calibri (Body) actually is significantly better.

What's wrong - the calculator, or the recommendations?

patsy    6.29.13

I have viewed reviews in the past and the century was at the top of the list then also.

Julie    4.05.14

It would be helpful if the font names were in the actual font and size. Everyone could then see the difference between them while seeing the ink usage comparison.

Type a Screen Name    2.19.15

This calculator is all wrong, please avoid.

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