Ecofont saves ink and the environment

Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:51AM EST

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There are many things we can do to save our printer's ink like using unbleached paper, an efficient printer, and printing only when necessary, but SPRANQ developed one more alternative called the Ecofont. The Dutch company says their new font design uses up to 20 percent less ink.

How is this possible? Well the secret is in the font's design, which is modeled after Swiss cheese. The creative designers first experimented with zebra striped fonts and thin letters, before deciding that a font with tiny holes in the middle would be the best way to preserve the size and outline of the letters.

Ecofont is compatible with Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux, and works just fine in OpenOffice, AppleWorks, and MS Office 2007. You can download the font for free over at Ecofont.

Try it out, then come back to tell us if you see much of a difference.

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  • 1 Posted by psunjka on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:20PM EDT Report Abuse

    Not a bad idea, but I can get a similar result with a toner-saving option in every printer...

  • 2 Posted by d.tfish95 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:33PM EDT Report Abuse

    I can do you one better, just outline the character, instead of filling it in

  • 3 Posted by m_willbanks on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    Outlining the character would reduce legibility. Ecofont is probably designed with ink gain in mind. Those tiny holes will fill up once the ink soaks into the paper. Question is, how will it act on coated stock, or when dry toner is used instead of ink? Looks like these folks did some testing on it to see how it works: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/ecofont-takes-the-swiss-cheese-approach-to-ink-savings.php

  • 4 Posted by joshrw1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:41PM EDT Report Abuse

    I have been using ecofont for a few months, and it is not bad. I don't know how much ink it has saved me, I am still going through a cartridge every two months because professors think its cool to waste paper and ink, but I cannot tell the different in the print quality. The only time I have ever noticed anything is when I use large fonts like 16 or more. It's not a huge deal, but you can see the little dots. And as for the toner saving options, why not use them in conjunction? Save more ink, that's what I do.

  • 5 Posted by bigbadwolftx1o1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    looks great I would deffintely try it and probably like it, looks like a great idea!! My question is will it save ink on the regular size font most people use for letters and documents at work and for everyday uses other than large printing ?

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