Tips and Resources for Responsible Printing

Tips to Reduce Paper Waste

• Always use double-sided printing.
• Reduce the margins and font size on your papers/projects.
• Use Print Preview and only print the pages you need.
• Print multiple PowerPoint slides on one page. Under Print Settings, you can change the print layout to "Handouts" and designate the number of slides - up to 9 - you want to appear on each page. PaperCut will only count that one side of the page rather than the number of slides that appear on it.  
• Collaborate using electronic documents whenever possible. Use email, CourseSite, or Lehigh's Google Docs to create, share, and edit documents.
• Check the printer status before trying to print more than once.
• Pick up your print jobs as soon as you print; don't wait to get them later or they may get placed in the recycling container.

Other Printing Resources

• Printing and Mailing Services is a Business Services cost center which has many services available from simple copying, to designing and making posters, or mailing out addressed letters.  
• The Mail Room at Campus Square also offers color copies and other printing services for more "professional" or custom jobs.
• The Lehigh Environmental Advisory Group (LEAG) is a campus organization which has taken the lead in addressing printing waste and other important institutional environmental and sustainability initiatives.  

Ideas for Faculty

LTS  has these suggestions for faculty who make assignments requiring printing:

• Re-use readings - Collect unwanted readings from students and distribute them to students in following semester.
• Allow students to read/submit work digitally - Contact your IT Consultant if you would like to learn more about having student read/submit work digitally.
• Re-use paper - Allow students to hand-in drafts on used paper.
• Change font/margin - Century Gothic and Times New Roman are the most "eco-friendly" fonts.  Suggest to your students to use this font and allow them to set the margins thinner to accommodate more words on a page.
• Accept (or require) double-sided print submissions for course assignments
• Disable PDF print function for online readings posted on CourseSite. To learn how, see this tutorial.