Is it cheaper to print in grey or black?

[OM2]

I thought I was shrewd... where I can, I will print in grey - my thinking being that I'm saving on costs

I have a colour laser

Then I thought... what if colour ink was being used to print the grey????
Oh... that would throw my cost saving efforts counter productive

But then I'm thinking, on a black ink only laser, the black toner will use less ink to print grey?
So why would it be different for a colour?

Answer: depends on the choice of grey??
I use whatever is standard in the grey column on Microsoft products - but no idea if this interprets to the computer as having elements of colour

Any thoughts?
Am I going mad?


OM

 

[PeterBJ]

I was a bit confused by your questions, are they about laser printers or inkjet printers? A laser printer uses no ink, it uses toner powder.

To find out what toners are actually used to print grey on your laser printer, try printing a B/W image and some text from Microsoft Word, with the font colour set to various grey tones. Then scan a small crop of the print using the highest possible resolution. You can then see if the print out is made from black only or the colour toners are also used in printing grey.

 

[OM2]

@PeterBJ yes, I meant toner powder

I suppose I could do what you say - but I was hoping someone wise hear knew already
I bought a laser printer to print invoices... and thought I was being clever printing some of the text in grey
Now, I' thinking that it surely can't be?

Having said that: the same question also applied to inkjets
Do you know the answer to inkjets?

Let me know

Thanks

 

[The Hat]

@PeterBJ yes, I meant toner powder

I suppose I could do what you say - but I was hoping someone wise hear knew already
I bought a laser printer to print invoices... and thought I was being clever printing some of the text in grey
Now, I' thinking that it surely can't be?

Having said that: the same question also applied to inkjets
Do you know the answer to inkjets?

Let me know

Thanks

@PeterBJ gave his best answer to you so you could check it out for certain yourself and I can also tell you that a colour laser is not the best machine for black or grey printed Invoices.

Your colour laser will use a mixture of the available colours to give you grey and so would an inkjet printer and if you wish to print much more economical, then you've got the wrong printer for the job, you should have gotten a good mono laser, a small colour laser is more expensive to run than a good inkjet..

 

[PeterBJ]

I didn't know, but I found the answer from druckerchannel.de. They do a lot of very thorough tests/reviews of printers, and also calculate running costs, so the site is worth checking out. I guess your printer is the Dell C1760NW?

Here is a magnified detail of a colour test print from a Dell printer using the same toners as your printer. It is seen that grey tones are mixed from all colours. I think a word document using another font colour than black will be printed the same way.

Here is a comparison test including a Dell laser printer that uses the same toners as your printer.

Here is a table of page yield and page cost for the toners used in your printer. The calculations and measurements are based on the ISO Farbdokument.

Another way of saving ink or toner is to use a "slim" font. This may look better in a business document than using draft quality or a grey font colour. Your customers' impression of your business might also depend on the look of invoices and other documents, so this is the approach to saving toner I would recommend.

 

[OM2]

@PeterBJ you are awesome
THANKS
Much more educated I am
Yes, I have the Dell C1760NW
It costs £1000000000 to print using Dells cartrdiges
Luckily, compatibles are available on Amazon for about £20 for a full set
There's many many good reviews for the toner

Having a laser is brilliant for the speed of printing. I have a Canon MX870. For printing in 'acceptable' output, this takes age - only highest quality is any good. Standard is rubbish and draft is abysmal.