Introduction

LeanPrint is a revolutionary technology that changes the way you print. It reduces your printing costs by optimizing the consumption of toner and paper, with the added advantage of minimizing environmental impact due to printing. Traditionally, you've always looked at the print preview, returned to the source document, tweaked some settings and content, and then rechecked the preview before finally sending the document to print. LeanPrint does all this, and more, automatically, so that you don't have to.

LeanPrint enables you to save money, time and the environment while printing. This is achieved by a single-click solution that utilizes several patent-pending Adobe technologies to automatically tune the formatting, colors and layout of a document when printed. The end result—greatly reduced cost and environmental impact of printing and documents that are less bulky and much easier to read, carry, and share. LeanPrint gets installed as a plug-in and adds functionality to your favorite applications which are most commonly used for printing—Microsoft® Word, Microsoft® Excel, Microsoft® PowerPoint, Adobe® Reader®, Adobe® Acrobat®, Microsoft® Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome —and gives you an alternative method of printing.

Printing is expensive: both in terms of cost and environmental impact. Printer toner is one of the most expensive commodities by volume; paper directly impacts the environment by the amount of wood pulp, chemicals, and water required for its manufacture.

Smarter ways of printing that save toner and paper can help you save money and reduce the environmental impact due to printing. In the long run, as more of us use smarter methods for printing, we can collectively save millions of dollars and make this world a better place.

How Adobe LeanPrint works

LeanPrint is a set of plugins for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Google Chrome. These plugins print the document after applying intelligent methods that preserve, or even enhance, the readability of the document. These plugins enable an alternative print path that is as easy as the existing methods of printing.

For every supported document file format, LeanPrint has defined optimized output algorithms. This output has been tested and has performed well in usability studies, and paper and toner consumption tests. For example, LeanPrint for Word output may be a landscape, 4-column page.

LeanPrint processes documents in one of the two different modes—Toner Saver and Super Saver. The Toner Saver mode focuses on minimizing toner consumption, while the Super Saver mode focuses on minimizing the consumption of both toner and paper.

• To save paper, LeanPrint analyzes the source document and assigns each page a complexity score. Pages that have low complexity scores can be reflowed for savings, while pages with high complexity score are left alone. The pages are then laid out for printing, keeping reading experience in mind.

• To save toner, LeanPrint may apply several intelligent actions, such as the following:

  • Reduce toner intensities

  • Remove background fills

  • Replace color fills with patterns

LeanPrint displays a preview, so that you can see what the final document looks like, and after you are satisfied, you can send it on to your printer.

Adobe LeanPrint modes

You can use LeanPrint in two modes: Super Saver and Toner Saver. Both modes support color and gray scale options.

In this mode, LeanPrint tries to save both paper and toner. The document is analyzed, and optimized to save paper. Along with page optimization, toner saving is also performed.

In this mode, LeanPrint reduces only toner consumption. Toner Saver can be run in Gray scale mode where all colors are converted to gray scale, or Color mode, where toner intensity is reduced to save toner. Using the Toner Saver mode is recommended if you want to preserve the layout of the documents.

You can choose the mode depending on your requirements. The following figure shows the economy trends for typical documents while printing. Modes C to F are supported by LeanPrint, while others are provided by your printer.

Working with Adobe LeanPrint

For quick information on getting started with using LeanPrint, see:

• Print documents

• Quick Print documents

• Working with Preview

• Print web pages

• My Savings

For more information on how LeanPrint works, and some "under-the-hood" information, see:

• Printing documents

• Printing spreadsheets

• Printing PowerPoint presentations

• Printing PDFs

• Printing web pages

For answers to some common questions, see Frequently asked questions.