THE NEWS IN PRINT

While the rest of the world is trying to go paperless, there is a country which seems to be progressing in an entirely opposite direction. According to a report published by Analysys International, printer sales in China have gone up by 4.1% when compared with the same period last year. Chinese market for new printers is worth £160m in the first quarter this year. These numbers doesn't include printer consumables but just printers alone.

HP was China's largest printer vendor in the first quarter, grabbing almost one third of the market. Epson and Canon held 21 per cent and 14.1 per cent respectively.

In a typically slow quarter, a whopping 2.1m of new printers have been sold which is 3.1% increase from last year.

All the printers sold are from the Western companies as the home-grown printer manufacturers are incompetent with the latest technology and the rate of upgradation.

These printer sales could be great news for many printer manufacturers, but it is our environment that is getting affected the most, as more printing results in disappearance of forests.

via Infomatics Online

The 5th of June every year is dedicated to the celebration of our environment we live in. Many social organization and individuals take steps on this day to save our environment by taking environmentally friendly measures. These measures undertaken shouldn't be restricted to only this day of the year but needs to be followed day after day. The complete redemption might never happen but better late than never.

Here are some steps to save paper which would protect the trees from getting felled:

- Strive for Paperless Office - Most of us work on computers these days and there is hardly any necessity for printouts. Avoid printing as much as possible
- Review Drafts using On-screen Tricks - People might miss an error or two while reviewing a draft on the screen. An on-screen resolution is to temporarily change the font size or maybe zooming the document. This makes the words easier to read and shifts things around a bit, giving your eyes a new view of the document.
- Print Necessary Material - I tried to print a spreadsheet once and to my horror, it printed 55 blank pages along with one page of matter. These things could be avoided by properly selecting what needs to printed using the print options.
- Use Duplex Printers - Duplex Printers is the new mantra for saving our environment as the consumption of paper could be potentially halved.
- Re-use Blank Side - For draft printing, re-use the blank side of other wasted printouts
- Rest in Peace - The wasted paper needs to be stored separately for recycling purpose. Recycling actively prevents more trees from being cut down.

Please think about our environment before consuming paper.