--- title: Testing, testing, testing. It prints! description: 'Back in 2008 Nick Ellery noticed that the default printer test page used more ink that it really needed to: Bug #298935 (“test print uses far too much ink”). Millions and millions of these pages get printed every year, so any saving in ink will be amplified. In addition, it still had the pre-2010 Ubuntu […]' url: https://canonical.com/blog/printer-test-page?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Canonical](https://canonical.com/blog/author/canonical "More about Canonical") 2 March 2012 # Testing, testing, testing. It prints! [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) [Display](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/display) [print](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/print) [recent work](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/recent-work) [testing](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/testing) --- Share the article Back in 2008 Nick Ellery noticed that the default printer test page used more ink that it really needed to: [Bug #298935](http://launchpad.net/bugs/298935) *(“test print uses far too much ink”)*. Millions and millions of these pages get printed every year, so any saving in ink will be amplified. In addition, it still had the pre-2010 Ubuntu logomark: [Bug #933489](http://launchpad.net/bugs/933489) *(“Ubuntu Printer test page has old branding”)*. Hopefully, the ink saving will help save the planet and everyone will benefit from something slightly prettier. Scan of new Ubuntu 12.04 Printer Test Page. The design is scaled to fit any size, not just A4 and US-Letter With the first [Ubuntu 12.04 Beta release now out](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/TechnicalOverview/Beta1) and having been in prepartion over the last fortnight, there’s been a chance to look over and see if the Design Team can assist with reponding to any bugs that might have been missed for too long. One year ago there were [a number of good suggestions](http://ubuntu.5.n6.nabble.com/Ubuntu-Printer-test-page-td1113087.html#postdropdown1113100) for making the test printouts to be more reusable, for instance by including a calendar or origami shape and would be good to incorporate in the future. Perhaps you can come up with a good design and suggest it for the next release cycle building up to Ubuntu 12.10? *Thank you to Lucas Camargo for experimenting with thinning the previous template. To Emily Maher on the design team for working on a more compact circular design that matches the rest of Ubuntu (and should use even less ink). And to Lars Ubernickel and Till Kamppeter for writing and uploading the new `bannertopdf` support code that pulls in the design and sends it out to the printer with debugging information appended.* [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### Canonical’s recipe for High Performance Computing](https://canonical.com/blog/canonicals-recipe-for-high-performance-computing) In essence, High Performance Computing (HPC) is quite simple. Speed and scale. In practice, the concept is quite complex and hard to achieve. It is not dissimilar to what... [Igor Ljubuncic](https://canonical.com/blog/author/igorljubuncic) 24 January 2024 [### Web team – hack week 2023](https://canonical.com/blog/web-team-hack-week-2023) Today, around 96% of software projects utilize open source in some way. The web team here at Canonical is passionate about Open source. We lead with an open-by-default approach... [Anthony Dillon](https://canonical.com/blog/author/ya-bo-ng) 25 October 2023