October 11, 2013

What does 5% Page Coverage Mean with Toner & Ink Cartridge Page Yields?

Filed under: Information — Michael DiLuzio @ 4:32 pm


 
By Michael DiLuzio
 
 
A lot of times when researching and ordering consumables for your laser printer or inkjet printer you will see a number of pages listed that a toner cartridge or ink cartridge will be able to print. This number is known as the page yield. It is a number assigned by the manufacturer of the cartridge and is usually based off of 5% of each printed page being covered in ink or toner. What exactly does this translate to in real world use, though?
 
5 percent of a standard 8.5″ x 11″ printer page is roughly a 1″ by 1″ square of a solid color. What does this look like? Let’s take a look:
 
yield-dot-page
 
Now, unless you are some sort of avant-garde experimental artist, you won’t be printing anything like this for practical application. Let’s take a look at what roughly 5% of a page looks like with text:
 
yield-text-page
 
That is not that much of the page, but it must be noted that this is calculated as the average amount of ink or toner used over all printed pages throughout a cartridge’s life. That being said, this information should be taken into account when deciding what cartridge to purchase. For an example, if you are a college student and know that you will be only printing full pages of text for term papers then you should calculate your purchase accordingly.
 
There are often “high yield” cartridges available for your printer that are designed to hold a higher volume of ink and toner and print more pages before their end of life. You can visit our store to see if your printer works with high yield cartridges or call our customer service department at 888-273-3084 and we’ll be happy to assist you.


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