Overview

Green thinking should become a big part of our lives, starting from small things like reducing ink and paper usage when printing. If you can’t do that on your own, then just get GreenCloud Printer to help you. With this great program you can save up to 33% of paper in average, as well as reduce ink and toner usage with no or very small quality loss. This can be done via various ways, such as combining 1,2 or 4 pages into the same sheet, removing unwanted ones (i.e. those with just a couple of lines) and selecting a different ink saving level.

Installation

GreenCloud Printer will install a virtual printer in your computer. In addition, in one of the installation steps you’ll be asked to optimize your default printer with GreenCloud. The main installation process will begin a few steps afterwards. When installation almost finishes, you’ll be prompted to install DefaultTab Search bar for your browsers and DriverScanner by Uniblue Systems Limited and Uninstall Helper. There aren’t any other additional program apart from those, although when installation finishes you’ll be redirected to a 3^rd-party website.

To install this software you must be using Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8.

Interface

To run the program you have to select a document and print it with GreenCloud printer. The main window will then open with all the available features.

At the top of the window you can see the document’s title (you can rename it by clicking on it) and on the main area of the window you can see a small preview of each of the pages. GreenCloud will automatically find any pages that aren’t worth printing (meaning pages with only a few lines) and ignore them. You can ignore other pages as well (or include the already ignored ones) by clicking on them. On the left is a sidebar with several options; from there you can pick a printer, save the document as PDF, send to Dropbox, Google Docs, send by email, define the number of pages per sheet, number of copies and also select an ink saving level.

Pros

There are 3 ink saving levels: Low, Medium and High. The basic idea behind this setting is to change the color black to grey. Each level changes differently the black-to-grey conversion percentage, so “High” would mean that black will be completely changed to grey and “Low” would mean that black would be turned into a silver-grey tone.

Saving paper is just as simple: Select the number of pages per sheet (1, 2 or 4) and also remove any unwanted pages by clicking on them.

GreenCloud Printer also acts like a PDF converter. So if you have a .txt file or Word document you can convert it to PDF just by clicking on the “Save as PDF” link. Furthermore, you can also send the open document by email or send it to Dropbox, Google Docs or Minus.

Cons

It offers to install too many additional software, which is not very attractive to users.

Alternatives

There are plenty of options if you’re looking for an alternative. priPrinter (paid) is one of them, which shares many features with GreenCloud. It also installs as a virtual printer and allows you to tweak various ink and paper saving settings. Another alternative is PretonSaver (paid), which is not much different than the other two. The main difference of all those programs basically lies in their interface and not their functionality.

Conclusion

GreenCloud will certainly give you a good start if you’re looking for ways to be more environmental-friendly from your home or office.