Award-winning print management software launched in SA

PretonSaver, a unique, next-generation print management software solution, has been launched in South Africa by Optimum Print Technology (OPT), based in Edenvale. This world first in print management software is capable of delivering up to 50% savings in company print costs - without compromising print quality.

PretonSaver not only shrinks the cost of print consumables used, but also minimises the environmental impact traditionally associated with office printing, by reducing paper requirements, carbon consumables and wasted or unnecessary prints.

“This software has already proved itself in other parts of the world and has an unprecedented track record,” says OPT's Markus Kluwe. “Customers worldwide report measurable savings of a minimum of 30% in consumable expenses across the board.

“It is the state of the art in printer management, optimising toner and ink usage, providing detailed reports and statistics from all company printers and increasing data security by tracking every print job via automatic annotation of user name and time. The system is also geared to implement user-specific or organisational print usage rules.

“PretonSaver reveals the actual financial cost of printing and the savings it's achieving, by maintaining a record of every document printed, together with the cost of the consumable used and the value of the saving, which it has made. This information can be provided in a series of management reports, which detail the cost and saving by user group, user, application and printer.

“PretonSaver is the only product available on the world market today capable of combining toner reduction, print management information, rule-based printing and printer management into a single software solution,” says Kluwe.

“It supports both inkjet and laser printers, as wells as multifunctional devices, in colour or monochrome, whether used locally or within a network, and with any make of toner. The software works within an existing printing infrastructure with the original manufacturers' PCL and PostScript driver settings and automatically maps printers, applications and users, so no company-specific set-up is required.

“We're so confident that PretonSaver can actually do what we're claiming, that we're offering proof of concept demonstrations if required.”

Printers and computers use different shaped pixels (dots) to describe text, graphics and images: screen pixels are square, while printer pixels are round. When data is printed, the square pixels are converted to circular pixels by drawing a circle around the square. The now-circular pixels are printed next to one another to compile data on the page to be printed.

The circular pixels overlap to cover the print area, resulting in ink or toner over-use. PretonSaver uses patent-pending algorithms to optimise toner and ink consumption, by removing a percentage of the adjacent pixels. The spaces left by the removed pixels are covered by excess ink/toner from the adjacent pixels. In inkjet pixels the bleed from adjacent pixels covers the space left by the missing pixels, while in laser printers, a smear from the adjacent dots covers the removed pixels.

The software's mathematical algorithms calculate which pixels can be removed without degrading print quality.

External accolades include a Gartner Inc Cool Vendor Award (2006) for innovative, impactful and intriguing technology; being short-listed two years in a row for the Groundwork Environmental & Technology Award (2007 and 2008) for innovative environmental technology and being short-listed, with TLS, PretonSaver's distributor in the UK and Ireland, for the “Suppliers creating sustainable communities” category in the prestigious LGC & HSJ Sustainable Communities awards.

Iain Stinson, Director of Computing Services at the University of Liverpool, UK, says: “PretonSaver was seamlessly installed by our own IT staff, who were impressed with both its quality and ease of use. A product like this is long overdue to maintain the quality of print, while minimising its environmental impact and saving money. PretonSaver achieved savings in excess of 30% across the university's entire fleet of printers, used by thousands of individuals. The software's processes went unnoticed by end-users and had no effect on network performance.”

At the Walton Centre, NHS, in Liverpool, UK, PretonSaver achieved proven savings in excess of 33%. The Walton Centre expects to recover the cost of the software from savings within six months of deployment. Procurement manager, Brian Mangan, says: “PretonSaver provides procurement professionals with the opportunity to harness innovation to achieve better value for money. In addition, it meets our objectives by lowering carbon and waste from office printing and helps us meet our goals, by reducing non-sustainable consumption. I would recommend PretonSaver to any organisation anxious to make progress towards sustainable procurement.”