My Inkjet Cartridge Page Yield Is Listed As 890 Pages – What Does That Mean Exactly?
Today I'm going to go a bit into the more numerical side of determining what kind of performance you can get out of a given inkjet cartridge. I'll cover some of the basic terms that you'll encounter when purchasing and comparing inkjet cartridges, and hopefully give you a better idea of what exactly they mean so you can make more educated buying decisions.
Defining Page Yield
The straightforward and short definition of page yield is that it is the number of pages that can be printed out of a given cartridge. However, you may ask - wouldn't this number differ based on the type of printing that was done? For example, if "Draft" printer settings were used throughout the life of a printer cartridge, that cartridge would certainly produce more pages than a ink cartridge used on the "High Quality" setting.
The answer is that page yield is measured using a standard called 5% page coverage. The definition of 5% page coverage is approximately the amount of ink used to print a 8.5 inch x 11 inch page with a light heading and title, and three paragraphs of double spaced text.
Therefore, the amount of printed pages you'll be able to get out of your printer varies on how the average amount you print compares to this 5% page coverage. If you regularly print photos from your printer, your page yield will be significantly lower than the manufacturer's quoted page yield, and vice versa if you usually print on "Draft" settings with only a few lines of text on average.
How Is Page Yield Officially Determined?
If you're really interested in how exactly this figure is obtained, then check out the official International Organization for Standardization writeups for page yield, titled "Method for the determination of ink cartridge yield for colour inkjet printers".
Or you could just take our word for it... 
A high yield toner cartridge produces more pages before running out of ink than its low yield counterpart. Cordell Standardization
Cordell Standardization
23 Aug 08 at 12:59 am