One of the important points for which it is necessary to have a network in our office or home is to be able to print from any computer that is there. For that we will need a network printer.
In this way, we avoid having to move the printer or computer
around to connect it using cables. We also avoid having to move the person from
the computer that has the printer installed to allow us to print a document.
In this post we are going to teach you how to configure your
network printer from Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10 so that you can print from any
computer.
Connect your printer to the network
The first aspect that we duty take into account is that for
our printer to be on the network it has to be connected to the network. It can
be wirelessly, or through an Ethernet cable .
When we set up a structured cabling network, it is very
convenient that we take advantage not only to connect computers, but also the
other devices that we are going to use: printers, scanners, etc.
If your printer has a network card , it will be enough if it
is turned on and close enough to the router so that you can locate it from
Windows. In case you want to connect it using cables, the printer cable must be
connected to the computer network of your office.
Install the printer happening one of the computers
Next what you must do is install and configure your printer
on one of the computers. Just connect it via USB cable to the tower and make
sure that the printer's start button is on.
In Windows 7 we will go to Start> Control Panel>
Hardware and Sound> Devices and Printers> Add a printer. In other
operating systems, the access method is the same or very similar.
We will get a window with two options: add a local printer
and add a wireless or bluetooth network printer.
Add a local printer: this option is for cases in which the
printer cannot connect to our computer via USB cable. The vast majority of
modern printers have a USB cable and the installation starts automatically when
you connect the cable.
Add a wireless network printer: this is the option that we
will use if our printer has a network card and we want to connect it wirelessly
to our computer.
Then we must follow the corresponding steps to install the
printer. This will include having to insert the installation CD if you ask us
to.
Share the printer on a network
1. If you already have your printer installed and what you
want is to share it on the network with other devices, what you have to do is
look for your printer in the control panel, entering the tab "Hardware and
sound".
2. When we find our printer, we click on the right button on
it and in the options menu we will click on “Printer properties”.
3. A new window willpower open, where we will have to look
for the “Share” tab. There we will mark the option "Share this
printer". We must also enable the option "Present print jobs on
client computers".
4. We will give "apply" and then
"accept". Our printer will already be shared and the other equipment
connected to a Wi-Fi or wired network can detect it.
However, there is still one point to finish: create a home
or work group and install the printer on the rest of the computers that will
use it.
Create a work or home group
To create a home group, we will go to Control Panel>
Network and Internet> Home Groups. In this window, if we have not created a
household group, we will click on the "Create a new household group"
button.
In the options that it will ask us, we will have to choose
the folders that we are going to share in the group (Music, Videos, etc). These
will include "printers" so that the network can work. When we finish,
we will get a password that we will have to write down somewhere. It will be
the password for our home group.
Join the group with the other computers
As long as your printer is connected to the main computer
and shared on the network, other computers can access it. But first they have
to join the home group for it to work.
To do this, we will simply limit ourselves to entering our
control panel, go to the option "Networks and Internet" and click on
the option "Home Group" or "Work Group". We will see that
our computer already detects that a group has been created. Then we click
"Join now".
We will make sure that the "printer" option is
checked, we click "next" and enter the password that we had signed up
for before. We finished.
Configure the printer in the rest of the computers
In "Control Panel", "Hardware and Sound"
and "Devices and Printers", we will go to "Add a printer".
We will indicate the option "Add wireless network or Bluetooth", in
case we do not have a wired network, and it will detect the printer that is
installed on the main computer.
We select it and point it to "next" and again to
"next". Lastly, it will give us the option to print a test page . If
it works, you have done it well.
Do you have doubts about how to make a computer network in
your company? Do you want to create a more complex wired network that allows
you to have a faster network? We invite you to contact us through our contact
form.