The latest trend in environmentally friendly printing: fonts designed to use less ink or fit more text on each page.

For example, there’s Ecofont (free download here), which places dozens of tiny white dots inside each character. The result is fuzzy but readable text that uses less ink than a standard font.

Because of the white space, Ecofont is meant for internal or personal use and works ideally when printing in 9- or 10-point type (12 at the most). Any bigger, and the ink-free dots become more apparent.

Another example, GreenPrint’s EverGreen font (on sale for $10) focuses on saving paper. EverGreen uses thinner characters, with less space in between, so more more words fit on each page. Compared to common fonts like Arial and Times New Roman, GreenPrint says the font reduces paper use by 15-20%.

As with EcoFont, EverGreen is readable, but not pretty. It’s best for personal or internal company use.

Tags: EcoFont, fonts, GreenPrint, save ink, save paper