Ecofont™: What Are Its Advantages and Disadvantages?

Ecofont™ as you can see in its logo, is a type of font that has a lot of holes in each letter printed. Up close, letters may come out a bit queer, but at regular font sizes of 9 and 10 and in some cases up to 12, the letters come out looking as if they were printed in the grayscale mode. Instead of using the regular amount of ink for those holes, the natural course of ink bleeding will fill them all up. That would mean a substantial portion of the ink you regularly use for printing texts was unused. This then reduces your ink consumption.

What‘s even nicer about it is that this eco-friendly font works best with laser printing. Users often complain about the costs of laser ink and toner, although it has been explained time and again that costs of laser ink and toner can be optimized if laser printing involves larger volumes of work. Ecofont™ allows the printer to optimize the laser ink further, since the savings that can be realized in using this eco-friendly font as one's typeface, is estimated to be as much as 50%. Results are expected to vary and will depend on the kind of platform used. Ecofont™ is highly recommended for those who are using MS Office 2007, Mac OSX, Linux and Open Office.

The program was previously available under an open source license during its introduction. Nonetheless, a free demo of the Ecofont™ software can be downloaded from its website's download page. (Find the link in the Reference section below).

It was developed by a group of Dutch web designers, called Spranq, which makes it a point to incorporate environmental awareness in its designs and concepts. To download, make sure that the computer works using any of the following operating systems: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Once the program is installed, the onscreen text will still come out regular looking since the adjustments take place during printing. It supports the most commonly used fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, Calibri and Trebuchet.

• Text prints do not come out looking crisp and border more on the grayscale quality. Hence, this is not ideal for creating business letters intended for clients, or even for management’s reportorial requirements.
• The eco-friendly font is not recommended for college term papers or theses either but may pass for grade school and high school reports depending on the font size required. Spranq recommend only the font sizes 9 to 10 for best results although some users are pleased with the font size 12 if only for internal or informal purposes.
• The font types are not the exact likeness of the Arial or Times New Roman, hence using it for graded school reports may require prior permission. Nevertheless, emphasis is more for internal use such as inter-office communication or for social newsletters whose readers may not be so discriminating.
• It won’t work for printing direct from the web pages inasmuch as these sources are not font-controllable. However, some users recommend installing Internet Explorer’s (IE) “Printee” program to allow printing adjustment to Ecofont™. Naturally, you have to use IE as your browser if you’re to print directly from the web page.

Despite these setbacks, users have found this eco-friendly font useful in ways that its developers have suggested. After its successful introduction, the product is now being offered in different editions. According to Spranq, numerous requests were received to develop the Ecofont™ as more attuned for office environment, thus, the Ecofont™ Professional presents a better version of the former open source application.

Ecofont™ is a simple idea with simple savings involved. As in any eco-friendly move to improve the environment, we can realize the greater impact of the Earth-saving benefit if we will multiply each measure of unit by the millions of users from all over the world.