Rules for connecting a printer to a computer. How to connect a printer to a computer: detailed instructions for Windows, Mac OS and Android How to share a printer on a network

You probably had to run with a flash drive from one computer to another in order to print a document. This is very inconvenient because it takes a lot of time and forces you to break away from your current work. A network printer can be a solution to this problem. In this article we will talk about how to connect a printer via a local network.

In this article we will describe only the local network. In order for you to use these instructions, you must already have a local network built and the printer must be connected to one of the computers.

Step No. 1. Share the printer.

In order to use it over the network, it needs to be shared. To do this, open the Start menu and go to the "Devices and Printers" section.

If you are using , then you need to open the Start screen with tiles and search for “Devices and Printers.”

After this, the operating system will prompt you to open this window. In the "Devices and Printers" window you will see printers, as well as other devices connected to your computer.

Here you need to right-click on the printer that you want to make accessible over the network and select the “Printer Properties” menu item.

After this, the “Printer Properties” window will open in front of you; here you need to go to the “Access” tab. On the Sharing tab, you must enable the “Share this printer” feature.

After enabling sharing, close this window by clicking the “OK” button. That's it, your printer is now accessible over the local network.

Step No. 2. Connect the printer via a local network to another computer.

Now we need to connect this printer to another computer via a local network. To do this, open the “Devices and Printers” window on the second computer and click on the “Add a printer” button.

After this, the “Add a printer” window will open in front of you, in it you need to click on the “Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer” button.

After searching for printers, the operating system will prompt you to connect the printer to which you previously shared access.

All you need to do is highlight the found printer and click on the “Next” button. This will complete the process via the local network.

But, if the operating system does not find the printer you need, then click on the “The printer you need is not in the search” button. After clicking this button, the system will prompt you to enter the printer address manually.

The printer address must be entered in the following format: “\\computer-IP-address\printer-name”. For example: \\192.168.1.2\hp.

After searching for the printer, the operating system will report that the printer was successfully connected over the network.

After this message, the connected network printer will appear in the system and will be available for use.

Many offices install a local network in order to exchange data and use common technical means. For a medium and small office it is easier to install one powerful printer instead of several small ones. It must be connected in such a way that it can be accessed from all computers in the institution. To turn a regular printer into a network, you need to correctly change some device parameters.

There are printing devices that connect directly to the router, bypassing the computer, but they are expensive. The easiest and most inexpensive way is to make a regular printer available to the public. It is connected to one of the office computers in a standard way - via an LPT or USB port, then it is made publicly available on the network. This method of using a printer over a network has limitations in its capabilities. The computer or laptop to which the shared printer is physically connected must be active on the network for the maximum amount of time. Install drivers and software on it from the disk always included with the printer, or find and download it on the Internet from the manufacturer’s website. Check system functionality. Make the printer publicly available. To configure, open “Devices and Printers” (or “Printers and Faxes”) in Control Panel. Find the installed printer, open its “Properties” by right-clicking on your printer icon. In the “Properties” window, the required tab is “Access”. Next to the line “Share this printer”, check the box. Leave the network name of the printer suggested by the system or enter your own. For example: "OKI_C510dn". Under this name, the printer will be recognized as a shared resource on the local network. Enter any name, but without spaces. All computers connected by the network have the same operating system installed as the computer with the connected printer - click “Ok”. The procedure is completed. If there are computers on the local network with a different operating system, install suitable drivers for them. In the Properties window, in the Drivers section of the Access tab, click the Additional Drivers button. A list of drivers will open, in which check the boxes next to those that you may need for other Windows. Pay attention to the “Installed” column; if the word “No” appears there, then you need to install a disk with drivers from the printer manufacturer, or download the selected drivers from its official website. For example: Canon, Epson, OKI. You can now use the printer as a network share. On the remote computer, go to the “Devices and Printers” (or “Printers and Faxes”) section and call the “Add Printer Wizard”. A window will open, in which select “Network Printer” as the connection method, then “Next”. All that remains is to correctly specify the path to the installed network printer. Follow the syntax: two forward slash characters, the name of the computer on the network, a forward slash, the network name of the printer. For example: "\\MyComp\OKI_C510dn". Click the "Next" button. The printer installation process will end with the system prompting you to print a test page - do so.

The advantages of connecting a network printer this way: there is no need to buy new equipment, it is standard for Windows, easy to use, without additional software. Cons: The computer with the physically connected printer must be running before it can be used, it is slow during a remote printing session, it takes a long time to wait for a print, especially for color printing.

If you have one printer and several computers at home, then you probably wondered how to set up a printer over a network. After all, running with a flash drive from one computer to another just to print a document is very inconvenient. In this material we will talk about how to set up printing over a network.

Setting up a printer for network printing involves two steps:

• Setting up the computer to which the printer is connected;
• Setting up a second computer that will use the printer over the network;

If the printer must be accessible from a large number of computers, then the second setup step must be repeated on all computers on which you plan to use the printer over the network.

Stage No. 1. Setting up the computer to which the printer is connected.

First of all, we need to configure the printer to work over the network on the computer to which the printer is connected via USB. On this computer we need to share the printer or, more simply put, share the printer. To do this, open the Control Panel and go to the “View devices and printers” section.

After this, you will see a list of connected printers and other devices. Here you need to find the printer you want to use over the network and open its properties. To do this, right-click on it and select "Printer Properties"(not to be confused with the “Properties” item).

After this, a window with the printer properties will appear in front of you. Here you need to go to the “Access” tab.

On the “Sharing” tab, you need to check the box next to “Share this printer.”

After that, close this window by clicking on the “OK” button. That's it, setting up the computer to which the printer is connected is complete. Now all that remains is to configure the computers that will use this network printer.

Stage No. 2. Setting up a second computer that will use the printer over the network.

The second stage is setting up the computer that will use the network printer. On this computer, you need to add the network printer to the list of connected printers. To do this, open the Control Panel and go to the same section “View devices and printers”. In this section we need to click on the “Install a printer” button. This button can be found at the top of the window (see screenshot).

This will open the “Add a printer” window. Here you need to click on the “Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer” button.

After this, the operating system will search the local network and display a list of available printers. The printer to which we just opened access should appear here. Select it and click on the “Next” button.

After this, the system will download the drivers and configure the network printer. The message “You have successfully installed the printer” will appear on the screen. Here we simply click on the “Next” button again.

And then click on the “Done” button. You can also order a test page to be printed at this setup stage, if necessary.

After clicking the “Finish” button, setting up the printer over the network is completed. Now a new network printer will appear in the list of printers, which can be used in any program, just like a regular, directly connected printer.

Solving problems with finding a network printer.

Please note that if at the stage of searching for available network printers the operating system does not find anything, then you can specify the path to the printer manually. To do this, click on the “The printer you want is not in the list” button.

After this, a window will appear in which you can manually specify the address of the network printer. To do this, select “Select a shared printer by name” and enter the printer address in the following format: \\IP-address\printer-name.

A network printer can be installed directly in Windows.

Before installing a network printer in Windows, make sure that:

• Your Mac computer has access to the Internet.
• Windows runs in shared network mode or bridged network mode and has Internet access.
• The user account in Windows has access rights to the network printer.
• You know the printer's IP address.

After this, you can log into Windows and install a network printer.

Before adding a network printer to Windows, download and install the required driver for it. For detailed instructions on installing the printer driver, see the manufacturer's documentation.

To add a network printer in Windows 7 or Windows Vista, follow these steps:

1. In the Windows menu Start select item Control Panel.
2. In the window Control Panel go to category Equipment and sound and press Installing the Printer in section Devices and Printers(in Windows Vista - Printers). The Add Printer Wizard opens.
3. Click Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.
4. In the next window, click The printer you need is not in the list.
5. In the window Find a printer by name or TCP/IP address select Add a printer by its TCP/IP address or hostname and press Next.
6. In the window Enter the printer name or address do the following:
   1. Select TCP/IPdevice in the menu Device type.
   2. Enter the printer's IP address in the Name or IP address.
   3. Uncheck Poll the printer and select the driver automatically.
   4. After that click Next.
7. Normal > Generic Network Card and press Next.
8. In the window Installing the Printer Driver

   Install from disk

To add a network printer in Windows XP:

1. In the Windows menu Start select item Control Panel.
2. In the window Control Panel double click on the item Printers and faxes.
3. Click Installing the Printer.
4. Click Next.
5. In the window Local printer or printer connection select Local printer connected to this computer and uncheck Automatic Plug and Play Printer Detection. After that click Next.
6. In the next window select Create a new port and specify as the port type Standard TCP/IP port. After that click Next.
7. Click Next.
8. In the next window, enter the IP address of the network printer and click Next.
9. If you need to provide additional information about the port, select Normal > Generic Network Card and press Next.
10. In the window Completing the Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port Wizard click the button Ready.
11. In the window Installing the Printer Driver indicate the manufacturer and model of your network printer.

    If the model you need is not in the list, click the button Install from disk and specify the path to the file with the extension .inf, which is located in the folder where the printer driver is installed.

12. Continue setting up the printer. Once you add a printer to Windows, you can use it to print documents from Windows XP.

The procedure for setting up a network printer in a Linux or FreeBSD guest operating system depends on the Linux or FreeBSD distribution and the printer. This example describes how to install a network printer on a virtual machine running RHEL 5.4 Server. However, these instructions can be used as a basis for installing a network printer on Linux or FreeBSD virtual machines.

Note. See the CUPS documentation for more information.

To install a network printer:

1. Start the virtual machine.
2. Make sure the following components are installed on your operating system:
   • Print service for UNIX-like operating systems. Installation instructions can be found on the CUPS website;
   • Samba service. Installation instructions can be found on the Samba website;
   • Web browser, since we're looking at managing CUPS through a web interface.

     Note. To install a network printer, you must have root user rights.

3. Download and install the appropriate printer driver. For detailed instructions on installing the printer driver, see the manufacturer's documentation.
4. Start Common UNIX Printing System. In the terminal, type the command:

   /etc/init.d/cups start

5. Open your browser and enter either your virtual machine's IP address or http://127.0.0.1:631.
6. Click the button Add a printer.
7. In the window Add New Printer specify the printer name. The printer will appear under this name in the guest operating system. You can also enter a description and location of the printer. After that click Forward.
8. In the window Device for select AppSocket/HP JetDirect and press Continue.
9. In the window Device URI for Enter the printer's IP address in the following format:

   socket://

   After that click Continue.

10. In the window Make/Manufacturer for select your printer manufacturer and click Continue.
11. In the window Model/Driver for select your printer model and click Add Printer.
12. When prompted, enter your superuser password.

CUPS will perform the installation. If the installation is successful, the message "Printer" will appear. has been configured successfully ". The printer can now be used to print documents from a virtual machine.

Hello.

I think the benefits of having a printer configured on a local network are obvious to everyone. Simple example:

If access to the printer is not configured, then you need to first transfer files to the PC to which the printer is connected (using a flash drive, disk, over a network, etc.) and only then print them (in fact, to print 1 file, you need to make a dozen “ unnecessary" actions);

If the network and printer are configured, then on any PC on the network in any of the editors you can click one button “Print" and the file will be sent to the printer!

Comfortable? Comfortable! This article will tell you how to set up a printer to work over a network in Windows 7, 8...

STEP 1 - Setting up the computer to which the printer is connected (or how to “share” the printer for all PCs on the network).

To be able to use the printer on any PC on the network, you must correctly configure the computer to which it is connected.

To do this, go to the Windows Control Panel, to the section: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center.

In the window that opens, you need to open three tabs one by one (Fig. 2, 3, 4). In each of them you need to check the boxes: enable file and printer sharing, disable password protection.

Rice. 2. public access parameters - expanded “private (current profile)” tab

Rice. 3. expanded “guest or public” tab

Rice. 4. expanded “all networks” tab

Here select your printer, right-click on it (right mouse button) and select the “ Printer properties". In properties, go to the “Access” section and check the box next to “ Share this printer"(see Fig. 5).

If access to this printer is open, then any user on your local network can print on it. The printer will not be available only in certain cases: if the PC is turned off, in sleep mode, etc.

Rice. 5. Sharing the printer for public access over the network.

You also need to go to the “Security” tab, then select the user group “Everyone” and allow printing (see Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Now printing on a printer is available to everyone!

STEP 2 - How to connect a printer over a network and print to it

Now you can proceed to setting up computers that are on the same local network as the PC to which the printer is connected.

The first step is to launch a regular explorer. At the very bottom left, all PCs connected to your local network should be displayed (relevant for Windows 7, 8).

In general, click on the PC to which the printer is connected and if in step 1 (see above) the PC was configured correctly, you will see the shared printer. Actually, right-click on it and select the connection function in the pop-up context menu. Typically, connection takes no more than 30-60 seconds. (automatic connection and driver configuration occurs).

Then select the connected printer, right-click on it and enable the option “ Use as default«.

Rice. 8. use network printer as default

Now, in whatever editor you are in (Word, notepad and others), when you click the “Print” button, the network printer will be automatically selected and you will only need to confirm printing. The setup is complete!

If when connecting printer an error appears on the network

For example, a common error when connecting a printer is the standard “Windows cannot connect to the printer…. "and some error code is issued (such as 0x00000002) - see fig. 9.

It is impossible to consider all the variety of errors in one article - but I will give one simple piece of advice that often helps me get rid of such errors.

That's all. By the way, if the printer does not print, I recommend reading this article:

As always, thank you in advance for any additions to the article! Happy work!