Professional Cleaning With moderate use, you should call your technician at least once a year to clean your machine. There are parts that are impossible to get at without disassembling the machine, and this should be best handled by a professional. This means optimized print density, double spaced text only, and letter sized paper. If you single space your text, you double the page coverage and cut your rating in half. On copiers, if you are copying from a colored paper, and the color from the paper creates a hazy background on your copy, that haze is toner being used and will minimize your page count.
Some copiers have an automatic exposure, which automatically optimizes toner usage.
However, it can have some drawbacks. This will cause the lightest print to darken to optimize toner usage, and correct the fading problem. This problem seems to be more pronounced with remanufactured cartridges using long life drums. Because the long life drums are a bit less sensitive than the OEM drum, having the wrong auto exposure setting will fade more often than with an OEM cartridge. In laser printers, and copiers that don't have autoexposure, the best way to optimize is to make a copy of your most often copied type of material, and lighten the density just until it becomes too light, then turn it back one increment until it is just dark enough to your satisfaction.