We’ve all had situations where a simple print command from Excel or Word results in numerous almost-blank pages being uselessly printed with a part or fragment of a table or formatting that uselessly spilled over onto blank pages. In most cases this can be fixed via ‘page break preview’ and/or page setup, but what if I told you that a free add-on can fix it instantly upon print?.
PrintEco Office is an add-on that can automatically kick-in whenever you print from MS Office, and instantly fit your printed pages onto the most efficient number of pages, and can switch between landscape and portrait printing styles for you. PrintEco Office is free for personal use.
This is the sort of thing that stays in the background, and will only kick in when you print. It will suggest and instantly preview a print formatting that can save paper and prevent almost-blank, redundant sheets of paper from being printed. It will also display the number of sheets that you are saving with each print.
Another nice feature is the option to instantly switch between portrait and landscape printing (and preview the output instantly) without going back into your document to do so.
If you choose not to print via PrintEco Office, it will check if it can save paper sheets for you and alert you, just in case (see below).
The verdict:
If you use office and a printer then this is a no-brainer, and can be very convenient addition. I like that it returns your document settings back to their original state automatically, so the only actual intervention is at the printing stage.
Note that PrintEco Office is different from other paper-saving printer utilities, such as iPrint. While the latter is designed to aggregate pages or span multiple pages across a single sheet, PrintEco is designed to do on-the-fly interventions that optimize your paper use automatically.
