What is 5% Page Coverage?

When purchasing cartridges, one thing we care about is the page yield. However, you may find that your cartridge doesn’t print the amount of pages it says that it should. Is there something wrong with the cartridge or the chip? Today, Chipjet will talk about this.

5% Page Coverage

To explain the above situation, the first thing that we need to know is “5% page coverage”. This is an industry standard measurement introduced and enforced by IEC and ISO. The page yield of nearly every ink and toner cartridge is calculated based on 5% page coverage. If your average page coverage is 5%, you are likely to print out as many pages as the manufacturer tells you. However, if yours is higher than that, the actual pages you get might be fewer.

Let’s assume that your cartridge has a page yield of 2000 pages and you usually print black and white documents, then it’s probable that your average page coverage is 5% and you will get closer to 2000 pages than someone else using the same cartridge but printing lots of files in colour every day. So, the actual page coverage might be different based on different printing behaviour.

The following pictures show you what 5% page coverage looks like on an A4 piece of paper. The left one is the printout while the right one demonstrates the ink coverage on an A4 piece of paper when what you are printing is compacted into a block.

What 5% page coverage looks like on an A4 piece of paper

The above is an example of different coverage types. You might ask: “Why the page coverage is much higher even though I print fewer texts?” Because printing photographs will use a lot more ink and toner, you get a high coverage.

Note: the page yields in this article are just examples. The actual pages are subject to specific printers.

How to Make Your Cartridge Last Longer?

In this article, we will introduce you to how to maintain your printer and make your cartridge last longer:

Pay attention to the humidity surrounds your printer. Put it in a dry place.

Check the mechanical devices regularly. Make sure no screws are loose or fall off.

Try not to print lots in small amounts of time.

Summary

The “Approximate Pages Remaining” showed in supplies status is an estimated value. If you print frequently, the number will be less than the standard page yield. On the contrary, if you don’t print often, the printer will recalculate the remaining pages and the average page coverage may return to 5%.