I’m not surprised an HP executive called the paperless office a fallacy – why would the world’s largest computer printer maker say otherwise.
HP senior vice president Bruce Dahlgren says: “It is unrealistic to think that printing is just going to go away”.
Computerworld Australia reports him saying: ” the way people print and copy is changing.” Dahlgren says people are printing more documents but fewer pages. They take more care about what gets printed.
I do the same.
Since starting my paperless journalist project I’ve managed to cut the number of printed pages by more than 60%, but zero remains a long way off.
I rarely print incoming documents for reading. But I still need to proof-read on paper – especially when I write important or longer pieces.
There’s no question I catch more errors in my work when proof-reading paper documents. I’m not alone. Online reading is tiring and online proofing is less accurate.
I think people are printing more now than in the past, not less. However, I found that the combination of a bigger screen, Adobe PDF Reader and networked scanner that has a sheet feeder and can scan double-sided docs has helped me reduce the amount of stuff I print and the amount of paper I store. (Disclosure: HP is a client but I work for the PC division, not IPG who do the printers.)
That was certainly true up until two or three years ago – worldwide paper use was climbing faster than global economic growth.
I haven’t been able to find more recent statistics.