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GreenIT word processing

 you make a multipage document. GreenIT software adjusts all the fonts so it fits on just 90 pt of the usual amount of paper saving 5 states worth of paper a year
  (+6)
(+6) 		  [vote for,
against]

On a PC print preview shows you what a document will look like printed. A Green printing button function adjusts everything such that it fits on 9 pages rather than 10, or 18 rather than 20.

It is worth pondering that the GreenIT button at Print would save 5 average states worth of office paper every year just from pressing a button. (10pt of 50 states) Thats fairly near the entire office paper usage of all of California. (Or Not. Only a certain pt. of documents are long enough to be compressible. I would think 3/4 of all office print jobs are fewer than 3 pages. )

That is the equivalent of tens of millions of people purposefully recycling.

Thus as software It looks like it might be worth crafting well so people use it.

I think the GreenIT software should have an appearance improver as well. So that people actually liked pressing the Greenit button. One approach is to use psychology to measure the persuasiveness as well as retention from various layout forms. If the software was able to create an appearance that was measurably more persuasive than 4/5 of typical office paper documents then users would know that pressing the GreenIT button made their communications more effective.

Thus along with the Right thing to do It would also be the Communicates better than average button.

Now Im aware that it is only some people that use the print preview button, thus I think the

Print Printgreen! Print Preview

menu might benefit from a little more verve to attract users. when you mouseover the menu item it says "high persuasive" or "audience optimized" or something.

Note that talk of saving trees goes with geographic region. Some Asian as well as S. American paper is from virgin forest. This would actually permit wildlife habitat to linger longer.

—beanangel, Jun 24 2011

Even better Skimpy_20Print_20Default
better ways to save ink/paper [sophocles, Jun 30 2011]

plotter http://safarri.com/ad-29
[VJW, Jul 01 2011]

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       [+] I like it and would use it! Last year our campus went *green* with getting all new printers set to default printing on both sides, to save paper. I don't always want double-sided, so I change it. I really wish it wouldn't print empty boxes at the end of a large Excel spreadsheet, so this would help me save even more. (If I used it at all times!)
—xandram, Jun 24 2011
   

       What [bigsleep] said.
—nineteenthly, Jun 24 2011
   

       For later reading I normally print 2 or 4 pages on a sheet ( MS-WORD feature) and I print back to back .   

       Thats 8 pages per sheet of paper. Document becomes much more thin.
—VJW, Jun 24 2011
   

       In Yorkshiremen territory again. There's a setting on the printer here which does sixteen pages a sheet and if you print it double sided you get thirty-two. You can increase that further by reducing the point size of the font and in fact, if you then print it as a paper tape binary code font, you can fit the entire Bible on one sheet of paper.
—nineteenthly, Jun 24 2011
   

       I like this.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 24 2011
   

       //sixteen pages a sheet// then preview the result, and print that 16 a side again, gives 256 sheets a side, or double sided for 512.   

       This is better than reducing font size, since that spoils layout and page design.   

       If you use an imposition tool you can get it to shuffle those 512 pages so that you can fold up your A4 sheet into a tiny book.
—pocmloc, Jun 24 2011
   

       We seem to be talking about some perfect printer with infinite resolution which exists in a theoretical world with different physics, i.e. classical and without atoms.
—nineteenthly, Jun 25 2011
   

       I kinda wish this didn't need to be labelled as 'green'. It could increase efficiency, and reduce costs and the amount of paper that needs to be carried around. That should be enough.   

       In the real world, gains like this are not 'green', because people just use the potential savings made on doing stuff to do more stuff.
—spidermother, Jun 25 2011
   

       In modern physics, is there an upper limit for information per unit volume?
—mouseposture, Jun 25 2011
   

       Yes.
—spidermother, Jun 25 2011
   

       Oh, c'mon don't keep me in suspense. What is it? Why is it? At least give a link.
—mouseposture, Jun 25 2011
   

       It's related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which in turn leads to the Plank length. If you try to make things smaller and smaller, eventually you can't tell where they are. (By the way, we are a long, long way from getting any where near such absolute limits yet. Annoying things like the thermal motion of electrons and atoms get in the way first.)
—spidermother, Jun 25 2011
   

       MS Word already has a doohickey that will compress a document onto fewer pages by fractionally altering the font, squeezing the line spacing within the parameters you set, pushing out the margins, setting the tabs back a space, etc. I don't know what it's called, I just know where the button is. On most versions it's accessible from the preview screen.
—Alterother, Jun 25 2011
   

       Amazingly I am the first persnickety critic of this idea. I added   

       (Or Not. Only a certain pt. of documents are long enough to be compressible. I would think 3/4 of all office print jobs are fewer than 3 pages. )   

       I think a tenth of all printing is overstating it. So just 2 or 3 states of printing saved per year. Unless it goes global then it is like 10 states.
—beanangel, Jun 26 2011
   

       I agree that you'd need to hook it in to making it look better. A shorter document might not be easy to provide an impressive balance of white space, though.   

       Now that I've had my say...   

       -------- Do not print anything below this line ----------   

       I just saved the planet!
—not_only_but_also, Jun 27 2011
   

       Print it on a microfilm and read it through a microscope. !
—VJW, Jun 27 2011
   

       I think the size of the paper itself should be reduced. Instead of Letter, LetterGreen - it's 90% the size. People will naturally try to fit their documents into just 1 page instead of 2.
—phundug, Jun 30 2011
   

       "5 states of paper"?   

       I doubt it. I count only 2:   

       Liquid-paper   

       Solid paper
—sophocles, Jun 30 2011
   

       Everything has a gaseous state, if you burn it hot (and fast) enough.
—Alterother, Jun 30 2011
   

       Bose-Einstein condensate paper?
—nineteenthly, Jul 01 2011
   

       I suggest using plotter which uses ordinary ball point pens.! <link>   

       Edit : This wont save on paper; but it will save on cartridges.
—VJW, Jul 01 2011
   

       Gaseous Printing=skywriting   

       Liquid printing=latte art?
—MechE, Jul 01 2011
   


 

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