Printer ink is notorious for being expensive. More costly than the price of the printer itself, Consumer Reports puts the price of branded OEM ink (such as HP, Canon, or Epson) at $13 to $75 per ounce, while a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon currently sells for $160, or $6.31 per ounce. With printer ink costing at least twice as much as premium champagne, you’ll certainly want to get every drop’s worth. We’ve broken this article into two parts: In the first part, we’ll talk about simple and proven strategies or printing habits that can prolong the life of your ink cartridge. In the second part, we’ll talk about methods you can use to tap out every last drop of ink from your cartridge.

How to Prolong the Life of Your Ink Cartridge
It's best to avoid using large fonts and bold text as they require more ink, which can add up to unnecessary printing costs. To save ink, you can try using fonts like Arial and New Courier. For even more savings, you can download Ecofont - a font style that includes small white circles within each character and uses 20% less ink.

Before printing, it's important to proofread your documents carefully to avoid any mistakes. This can save you from having to reprint, which would result in additional ink usage and wastage.

Printing is a common and necessary task in most offices and households. However, the ink usage of a printer can be a major concern for many people. That's why it's important to learn some tips and tricks to save ink.

One easy way to save ink is to check and adjust your printer's default settings. Many printers come with factory settings that use up a lot of ink, so changing these settings can make a big difference. To do this on a Windows-based computer, click start > printers > right-click on your printer and choose "preferences". You can then make changes such as setting the print quality to "draft", choosing "print in grayscale" to prevent color printing, or selecting "document options" to print multiple pages per sheet.

Another tip to save ink is to use the "print preview" feature before sending anything to be printed. This allows you to see how the document will appear on the page and make any necessary adjustments before printing, which can prevent wasting ink and paper.

If you notice that your printer is not printing as it should, it may be due to a clogged nozzle. Before throwing it away, try running your printer's printhead cleaning feature. This can help to remove any ink that has settled and dried over the printhead nozzles during a long interval between print jobs.

In many cases, saving a digital record of a document is just as effective as printing a copy. If you don't need a hard copy, save the file to your computer or an external drive and avoid printing altogether.

Finally, using third-party print cartridges can be a cost-effective alternative to big-name brands. However, it's important to choose a reputable supplier that offers a strong warranty and flexible return policy. Starink is one such company that stands by all of its compatible toner and ink cartridges with a 100% Satisfaction.

How to Get Every Last Drop of Ink From Your Cartridge
If you’re receiving a warning from your printer that it’s out of ink or running dangerously low, go ahead and ignore it. A test revealed that most ink cartridges still hold anywhere from 8 to 45% of their ink when the message appears. So how do you get the remaining ink from your cartridge? There are a couple of ways:

Printhead Cleaning: You may sometimes think you’re running low on ink when you start getting streaky prints, but it may only be because your printhead needs cleaning. There are a few ways to remedy this but the easiest way is to run your printer's printhead cleaning feature to get rid of dried ink in the printhead. This especially happens when your printer hasn’t been used for a while.

Shake it: When your prints start to look faded, it’s not always because your cartridges are running empty. Sometimes it could be because some of the ink has dried up and is clogging the nozzles. Apart from the hair dryer method, you could also try flipping the cartridge upside down and then gently shake it. Easy on the shaking though, we only want to get the ink unstuck, not break the cartridge.

Hair Dryer Method: Another way to get every last bit of ink from your cartridge is to make sure your cartridge nozzles are clear. Blowing the nozzles with hot air thins out whatever ink blockage is there and enables the rest of your ink to come out.

Paper Towel method: Similar to the hair dryer method, the paper towel method also aims to clear out dried ink from the nozzles to help the rest of the ink come out.

Cover the Sensor: Some ink cartridges come with a chip that detects ink levels. And more often than not, this chip sends out an empty cartridge warning too early. When it does, it sometimes won’t let you print unless you change cartridges. To address this issue, cover up the chip sensor with dark electrical tape. Take that, you chip!