Mono or Colour? Why You Don’t Have to Choose With a Canon imagePROGRAF

We still hear from customers who only ever want to print black-and-white CAD drawings and assume that means they’re stuck with a colour printer they’ll never fully use, or worse, paying over the odds every time they print in mono. It’s a reasonable worry, but not one you need to have with a Canon imagePROGRAF.

You get both, on the same machine

Every printer in the Canon imagePROGRAF range can print in full colour or straight mono, and switching between the two is just a setting, not a different machine. You’re never locked into one or the other — print black-and-white CAD drawings all week, then switch to colour for a poster or a coloured plan without any extra kit.

The cost difference is smaller than you’d expect

All the ink colours have to be present in the machine for it to operate at all, whether you’re printing mono or colour, and every imagePROGRAF comes with plenty of free ink in the box regardless. In practice, that means the cost of a mono CAD print and a colour CAD print on the same machine works out to be virtually the same.

Why that’s worth knowing

If you’re printing in-house, it means there’s no real financial penalty for having colour available even if you rarely use it — and when you do need a coloured plan or a poster, you’re not stuck sending it out. If you’re a print provider, it means you can add colour CAD and quality poster production to what you offer without a meaningful jump in running costs, turning an occasional mono-only customer into extra revenue.