Today on “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio (NPR), Patty Murray of Wisconsin Public Radio reported that the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay has switched the default font on its e-mail system from Arial to Century Gothic in order to save money on printer ink. The university was primarily targeting local printing by students

While the Century Gothic font is proven to use less ink (or toner) than Arial and several other fonts, it is also wider and therefore can take more paper, thereby undercutting any savings. The story also referenced (incorrectly) that Century Gothic is more efficient than using an Ecofont. The folks in Green Bay apparently weren’t aware that Ecofont makes a variety of typefaces. Naturally, Ecofont was immediately on the wires with a rebuttal “Why Ecofont saves more money than Century Gothic.”  

Ecofont www.ecofont.com purports to save up to 25% on ink or toner without a loss of legibility. According to the literature, the Ecofont software works with your existing fonts and “during printing Ecofont ‘shoots’ holes into the letters that you have typed.” It is  intended for PCs and workstations versus production printing – but there may be production parallels.

Printer.com decided to take the analysis a bit further and test 9 different fonts for their respective ink and toner usage. The most efficient font cost 30% less than Arial in supplies costs and the least efficient cost 10% more than Arial. That’s a potential 40% swing in cost based on font selection.

Many of us are subject to the constraints of corporate brand identity standards and can’t randomly change the fonts we use, but where there are a variety of fonts to choose from it would be worthwhile to conduct your own tests on relative ink / toner usage. Where brand standards are not an issue, printers would do well to have font efficiency guidelines available as a benefit to their clients – particularly if printing on toner devices. In addition, corporations trying to push electronic adoption should consider investing in Ecofonts for your customers so that they can save money when they print information out at home. Perhaps this can be your next incentive for those who sign up for e-statements or other e-presentment. They might even thank you.