Looking for tips on education printing? A tight school budget can make printing what a teacher needs challenging. Looking for ways to save money or seeking creative education printing strategies will help teachers make the most of money and resources without sacrificing quality instruction and meaningful content for their students.
- 5 Ways to Save Money on Education Printing
- 1. Calculated Order Size for Education Printing
- 2. Careful Color Selection for Education Printing
- 3. Clever Paper Choices for Education Printing
- 4. Efficient QR Codes for Education Printing
- 5. Sensible Reuse for Education Printing
- Plan Your Education Printing Project
5 Ways to Save Money on Education Printing
Many educators work hard to stretch their education printing costs to allocate money to the most critical supplies. But that doesn’t mean that printing supplies are not valuable and necessary for most classrooms. On the contrary, teachers are always looking for education printing strategies to cut these costs while still providing students with beautifully printed handouts, activities, and other consumables that they can use for instruction that will look great while holding up as a cost-effective use of their available funds.
We’ve collected five different ways for teachers to save a little cash while still splurging on gorgeous education printing supplies for their classrooms.
1. Calculated Order Size for Education Printing
One of the best ways to save money is to plan out your education printing projects well enough to place bulk orders. Since larger projects or groupings of smaller projects can cost less, strategically planning to place a large order can help teachers preserve funds for other necessary projects.
Before deciding which projects should be printed using school resources and which are better served by engaging a printing company to complete bulk orders, list out all of the projects and their quantities, materials needed and details like size and binding necessary to bring them to the classroom in the format you want to present to students.
Then, look at the projected costs for small or large runs of the project to determine if going with a bulk order helps educators save money. For some education printing projects, money savings are worth buying more than one year’s worth of a project when costs are divided out over a larger quantity of the books, booklets, pamphlets or other printing products that are necessary in the classroom. Bulk buys can save educators money by planning ahead for the future.
- Booklets: A project of 25 8.5×11 saddle-stitched booklets can cost $3.60 per booklet, providing a booklet for each student in a classroom at a significant cost. But when a bulk order of 100 booklets is ordered, perhaps purchasing for future classroom needs, the cost per booklet drastically reduces to $.84 each.
- Postcards: Creating a simple black and white, 4×6 postcard for a minimum order of 100 students will average out to approximately $.40 each. But with a little forethought, planning to purchase postcards for multiple classes or future years will produce large savings. The same cards purchased in bulk can be reduced to a cost of $.19 each when 500 are purchased.
2. Careful Color Selection for Education Printing
The second way to save money as a teacher is to manage color selection with an eye to cost. Of course, black and white printing is almost always the most affordable option for any education printing project, and this low-budget choice is perfect for many educational purposes like test booklets, worksheets, teacher and student guides as well as many internal school documents.
But sometimes projects need to utilize eye-catching details, and color can be an excellent way to catch and hold a student’s attention with a printed project. Some color selection choices that can help teachers spend less on printing projects are:
- Choose to use a bold font for areas in the project that may have otherwise been printed in a standout color. Bold, large or unique fonts can draw attention to a word, phrase or section in the same way that color does, saving you printing costs at the same time.
3. Clever Paper Choices for Education Printing
Using the education printing services of your school may only mean you have one or two paper weight options to use on any given project. Typical copy paper is purchased in reams of 500 pieces, and many educational and business settings utilize a standard 20# paper. This type of lightweight paper is good for most general use but altering the weight of the paper you use on a project can help you save money while still producing the beautiful project you want for your classroom.
Many schools don’t offer other lighter or heavier weight paper in their printing service but going with a bulk printer that offers multiple different paper weight choices can add up to significant cost savings when you plan out printing projects ahead of time. Dazzle Printing offers several different paper weights and combinations of coatings on those papers so you can choose the right one for your project and your budget. From 60# to 100# with plain, gloss or matte finishes available, choosing the ideal paper choice will help you save money while creating a great-looking project that your students will enjoy.
4. Efficient QR Codes for Education Printing
Classrooms often present students with materials that are both physical and digital, sometimes commingled within a singular project. But as handy and prevalent as the advancing digital format is in the educational realm, printed projects will always be necessary. Technology fails, is unavailable in some circumstances, and is not appropriate for others, so most educators rely on quality printed materials regularly.
One way to integrate the best of technology into the classroom is through the use of QR codes. These unique black-and-white graphics utilize the power of a smart device to link the printed code to digital materials, from videos to photographs to any length of text content. The beauty of QR codes is that the educator controls the destination that the QR code is linked to, offering the chance to change or improve the content and student experience at any time without deleting the printed QR code.
These codes can be embedded into reusable printed materials, placed securely on desks or emailed out to parents or students as communication tools. Highly versatile, the QR code is an excellent way for educators to save education printing costs by connecting the necessary integration of smartphones into curriculum and communication in a fun way that students will enjoy but doesn’t increase costs year over year.
5. Sensible Reuse for Education Printing
The final tip to help educators save money on printing costs is to practice smart recycling of printed materials when it makes the most sense. Crafting a printed project with heavier-weight papers like 80# or 100# will require an initial increase in potential cost, depending on the other elements of the printing project as well as whether or not you are printing in bulk, which drives the cost per item lower.
But these thicker papers are stronger and when an additional coating is added to paper like matte or gloss, they can hold up longer and be reused multiple times, extending the life of the project and driving the price-per-use down.
Another way to create reusable printing projects is to upgrade the binding choice to increase a project’s durability. Saddle stitching, the binding option that utilizes two staples to bind the center of a book constructed out of folded pages is the most economical because this style of binding uses very little material to create the binding.
While a minimal upfront cost may be appealing, using a sturdier binding like Plastic Coil binding that uses a strong coil punched through the margins of the project creates a durable book that can withstand many uses, driving down the cost-per-use exponentially. The most resilient binding that also looks the most professional, Perfect binding that uses strong PUR adhesive to hold the pages of a soft covered book together can result in a book that a teacher can keep for years since it will not only be durable but also store well on a shelf or stacked in a cabinet.
The heavier weight covers often used on Perfect bound, Plastic Coil and similar Wire-O bound books that use metal in place of wire to bind materials also protect the project in a way that simple lightweight copy paper could never do.
Planning to recycle certain handouts each year will significantly reduce the costs associated with education printing projects for the classroom. Holding on to copies, especially when they are produced with stronger materials is always an efficient way to manage the flurry of papers that always accompanies classrooms and sticking to a reuse and recycle philosophy is an excellent way to bring a green way of thinking to your classroom.
Plan Your Education Printing Project
Whether you are a seasoned teaching professional or planning your first classroom, getting a handle on your printing expenses can be a big job along with all of the other tasks required of teaching. But planning your printing, considering details like color, bulk pricing, reusability, and the integration of technology through QR codes can all help you save some cash so you can dedicate those funds toward the amazing extras you have planned for your classroom.
Partnering with Dazzle Printing can help you save money printing but still love the projects you make for your students so you can focus on the most important part of your job: your students.
