The Printliminator bookmarklet offers an easy way of removing elements from a website before printing it. The bookmarklet needs to be executed while the website is active. It will display some controls in the upper right corner of the screen. The main controls on the other hand are available with the mouse. Elements on the page will be marked with a red rectangle by moving the mouse around.

Website before optimization for print:

Website after optimization to save printer ink:

A click with the left mouse button will remove the active red rectangle from the website. This includes all elements that are contained in the rectangle at that time. The rectangle will be removed and if that clears a row in the page the remaining content will be moved up. It usually takes a few seconds to remove all elements on the website that are not needed for the print out. This can save a lot of printer ink especially if print outs are generated on a regular basis.

The controls in the upper right corner can be used to instantly remove all graphics from the page, to undo the last action, send the website to the printer or apply a printing stylesheet which will remove some elements and maximize the text to the web browser window. Printliminator should work in all web browsers that support bookmarklets.

A good way to save printer ink using optimization is to remove elements that are not needed in a printout. A user who wants to print out an article on a website might not need the menus, advertisements and comments that go along with it on the website. The second option comes down to specifying a print quality and font.

Ecofont has been designed for this exact purpose. Its nature does not make it applicable for all printouts but should be fine for internal printouts. The font makes use of a very obvious observation which centers around the idea that a font with less visible areas requires less ink. Ecofont therefor is a font with holes. This holes can save up to 20% of the usual amount of ink needed to print pages with a normal font.

It should be pretty obvious that this font is usually not one that should be used to print out important papers. Ecofont is offered as a free download at the creator’s website.