Save On Precious Ink

Coloured ink for inkjet printers is very expensive, especially if you have a printer with the three colours in the same cartridge (and this has to be replaced when only one colour runs out). For most purposes (except for photos, and perhaps a few others) you don't need to print colours, so set your printer to print only in black and white, which uses only the black ink cartridge. And you can turn the colour back on again when you want a coloured print — see below.

When using this option the quality of coloured pictures (and coloured text in emails, web pages, etc) with some printers is good, but for others it can be rather faint (how I wish that people didn't use light blue for the text in their emails, if I want to print them out on one of these printers!)  As many pictures on websites, etc, are largely ornamental this doesn't matter; the colour option can be turned on when you need good quality for these.

To set the default for black and white:
On your computer, click on the Start button; click on Settings; click on Printers (or Printers and Faxes). In the window which opens, right-click on the icon for your normal (default) printer (this will have a white tick in a black circle). In the menu which opens, click on the "Properties" button. A window will open; click on the "Printing Preferences" button. Another window will open; find options for "Color" and "Black" (or a box for "Print in Grayscale") — you probably need to click on one of the tabs to find these. Click on the button for "Black" (or click to put a tick in the box for "Print in Grayscale"). Click on OK to close each window which is open.