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Chapter 8: You Need Only One Printer
- Expanding Your Family: Putting a Printer on Your Home Network
- Tell the Host: Sharing Is a Virtue
- Sharing the Printer Wealth in Windows XP
- Sharing the Printer Wealth in Windows Me and Windows 98 SE
- Detecting a Network Printer from Windows Me and Windows 98 SE Computers
- Printing to a Network Printer
- Making Your Printers Dance and Sing
- Turning Printer Sharing Off
- Making Remote Printing Painless
- Key Points
Chapter 8 You Need Only One Printer
If you don't have a home network and you want to print a document on a printer that's not connected to the computer you're using, you're in very much the same predicament as when you want to transfer a file from one computer to another. You need to copy the file to a disk (if it'll fit), carry the disk to the computer with the printer attached (if no one else is using it), and print your document (if the software you need is installed on that computer). When you put printers on your network, you can print to any one of them just as easily as to any other. Stay in your chair, select a printer, and print the file. It's that simple.My job in this chapter is to show you how to hook up a printer to a computer, and then to share the printer so others on your network can see it. Your other networked computers need to have the software drivers to control the printer as well, but you can install them quickly. I'll then show you how to use your printer effectively by password-protecting it (if desired), turning off sharing, or removing the printer from your network altogether.
Expanding Your Family: Putting a Printer on Your Home Network
Not having a computer network hurts two types of people: innocent bystanders (for example, someone whose computer is connected directly to a nice printer) and you. If you've used computers in your home or office without the benefit of a network, you've probably wished that the really good printer, the expensive laser printer or the color ink jet model, were attached to your computer so you didn't have to copy all your files to disk or CD-ROM and then get in line to use the computer with the nice printer.
Location, Location, Location: Placing the Printer
When it comes to setting up a home network, Microsoft Windows operating systems treat printers as just another network element, equal to computers and shared drives. You can add printers to any computer on your network and share them with everyone else on your network.When you're choosing which computer to connect a printer to, keep in mind that everyone in the house will want to print to it, and that the printer should be ready whenever it's needed. To that end, you should locate the printer near a computer that is always on and that is in a high traffic area, one that won't disturb you when you're trying to sleep or get work done.
Adding a Printer to a Computer
There are two things you need to do to share a printer over a home network. The first step in the process is to connect the printer to a computer on your network. Adding printers to computers is something folks have been doing since the very earliest days of computing, so it should come as no surprise that Windows operating systems have wizards to step you through the process.
To install a printer on your computer, follow these steps:
- Log on to your computer using an account with sufficient permissions to install new hardware (that is, with an administrator account in Windows XP).
- Set up your printer, plug it in, and connect it to one of your computer's universal serial bus (USB) or parallel ports. When you do, your computer will recognize that new hardware has been connected and run the New Hardware Wizard.
- Insert the CD-ROM or floppy disk that came with your printer into the appropriate drive, select Install The Software Automatically, and click Next.
- The New Hardware Wizard will search your computer's drives for software to run the printer. When the computer finds the software, it will copy the files it needs and run any additional installation software that came with the printer.
- When the last page of the New Hardware Wizard appears, click Finish.
Tell the Host: Sharing Is a Virtue
Once you have connected your printer to its host computer and printed a test page, you need to let the host know you want to share the printer with the rest of the network. If you're running Microsoft Windows XP, you don't need to do anything; whenever you add a printer to your network, any computer running Windows XP will sense the newcomer, sniff it to see what it's about, and add the printer to its list of available resources. For computers that don't run Windows XP, there are a few more steps, but it's not too much pain for quite a lot of gain.
Sharing the Printer Wealth in Windows XP
To let others use your printer over the network when the printer is connected to a Windows XP computer, follow these steps:
- Click Start and choose Settings.
- Click Printers And Other Hardware.
- Click the icon representing the shared printer and then, in the Printer Tasks list, click Share This Printer.
- On the Sharing tab of the printer's Properties dialog box, click Additional Drivers.
- Select the Intel Windows 95, 98 And Me check box, and click OK to let anyone using a computer with one of the listed operating systems to print to the printer you just shared.
Click to view graphic
Sharing the Printer Wealth in Windows Me and Windows 98 SE
As is the case on computers running Windows XP, sharing a printer on computers running Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) and Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) is a straightforward operation. I did want to put the instructions in their own section because the steps you follow are slightly different in these older operating systems, but there's nothing tricky about it. It's just a matter of knowing which menu items to choose to show the printers available to your computer.To let others use a printer connected to a computer running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to share and choose Sharing.
- Select Shared As, type a name for the printer in the Share Name box, and type a comment for the printer in the Comment box.
- Click OK.
Click to view graphic
Detecting a Network Printer from Windows Me and Windows 98 SE Computers
One handy manifestation of the focus on home networking found in Windows XP is that Windows XP computers all know how to detect printers that are connected to other Windows XP computers on your network. Unfortunately, Windows Me and Windows 98 SE don't have that same capability. No, they need to be told. But only once, so they're way ahead of kids, spouses, and significant others in that respect.To add a printer to the list of available printers on a computer running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Double-click Add Printer.
- Click Next, select Network Printer, and then click Next.
- Type the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) of the printer in the Network Path Or Queue Name box, and click Next.
- Type a name for the printer in the Printer Name box, select the Yes option button in the Do You Print From MS-DOS-Based Programs section, and click Next.
- Select Yes to print a test page and then click Finish.
Click to view graphic
Printing to a Network Printer
After you add a printer to your network and have ensured that every computer knows the printer exists, you can use that printer regardless of where you are on your network. If you're in the den and want to print out a letter on the laser printer in the living room, all you need to do is identify the laser printer as the instrument that will bring your deathless prose to the world.To print to a network printer, follow these steps:
- Choose the Print function in the program you're running, usually by choosing Print from the File menu. In most programs, including Microsoft Word, you'll see a dialog box that lets you choose the printer you'll use to print your document.
- Click the Name down arrow and select the printer you want to use to print this document.
- Choose the pages to print by following any of these steps:
- Select All to print the entire document.
- Select Current Page to print only the page where the insertion point is located.
- Select Pages to print only the pages you define in the text box next to the option button.
- Select a portion of the document and choose Selection to print only the highlighted portion of your document.
- Type the number of copies you want to print in the Number Of Copies box.
- Click OK.
Click to view graphic
Making Your Printers Dance and Sing
Sharing a printer over a network is a lot like sharing an Internet connection—you can create a hard copy of any document from any computer in the house. If you have a wireless network and a laptop computer, that means you can print anything from anywhere. That sort of flexibility is what brought me into home networking for the first time, and the minor inconvenience of having to get up off the sofa and wander over to the printer on my bookshelf to pick up my document is nothing more than a reminder that printers still can't hand you the printout directly. I'll drop a note in the Microsoft Suggestion Box to see if there's any way that capability can be added to the next version of Windows, but for now you should plan on spending at least a few seconds a day away from the sofa.
Changing the Default Printer
When you have more than one printer available to a computer, one of those printers will be designated as the default printer.
If you work from home and have a black and white laser printer you use for printing letters and a color ink jet printer you use to print photographs and Microsoft PowerPoint slides, you want to be sure you know to which printer you're sending a document. The price difference between color and black and white documents isn't as big as it used to be (remember, in 1993 it cost my employer $3 to print a page on a color laser printer), but it's still embarrassing to walk into your living room expecting to pick your report out of the laser printer and discover you just sent 50 pages of plain text to a color printer you just installed.
To change the default printer on a computer running Windows XP, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and choose Control Panel.
- Click Printers And Other Hardware.
- In the Pick A Task list, click View Installed Printers Or Fax Printers, right- click the printer you want to assign as the default printer, and choose Set As Default Printer.
- After you confirm that you want the printer to be the default printer, a check mark appears next to the printer, indicating it is the default printer on that computer. Close the printer window.
To change the default printer on a computer running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to assign as the default printer, and choose Set As Default. After you confirm that you want the printer to be the default printer, a check mark appears next to the printer, indicating it is the default printer on that computer. Then close the printer window.
Password-Protecting a Printer
Remember what I said about color printers being less expensive to use than they were a few years ago? It's true, but it doesn't mean you need to let just anyone use your color printer whenever they want to. When I was a kid I thought cats were cool and would spend hours drawing them with my crayons and colored pencils. I have no doubt that if I'd had access to a color printer, I would have spent many hours and many dollars worth of supplies printing page after page of kitty pictures.You can avoid indiscriminate or unknowing use of a printer by protecting that printer with a password. When you password-protect a printer, anyone who sends a job to that printer will need to type in a password to convince the printer to do it. Adding a password will keep out the casual user and might also alert you to the fact that you are indeed sending 50 pages of text to the color printer.
To password-protect a printer in Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to protect and choose Sharing.
- Type a password in the Password box and click OK.
Click to view graphic
Deleting a Printer
As with all manner of computer equipment, printers come and go. I personally have gone through five printers since I bought my first computer, but every time I bought a new printer I made sure the old one went to a good home. Of course, because I wasn't using the printer any longer, I deleted it from my system so I wouldn't try to print to it by accident. I've spent time standing next to a new printer, wondering why my document wasn't printed, when all the while my computer was searching in vain for the printer that used to be there.
To delete a printer from a computer running Windows XP, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and then choose Control Panel.
- Click Printers And Other Hardware.
- In the Pick A Task list, click View Installed Printers Or Fax Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to delete, choose Delete, and then, in the message box, click Yes.
To delete a printer from a computer running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to delete, choose Delete, and then, in the message box, click Yes.
Turning Printer Sharing Off
I like to say that there are no irreversible computer networking decisions. Whatever you, the network creator, choose to do, you might also choose to undo. Sharing printers is no exception. Allow me to paint you a picture, one that is probably all too familiar. It's early morning, and you've been up all night working on a project you absolutely have to hand in today. Your job, your promotion, your boat, your very well-being is on the line. And you can't get at the printer because someone else is printing the large-print version of War and Peace. You can make sure this never happens to you by turning off printer sharing. Yes, it's selfish. Yes, your roommate or family might not understand, but it will save you from grief. Just be sure to turn sharing back on when you're done.To turn off printer sharing for a computer running Windows XP, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and choose Control Panel.
- Click Printers And Other Hardware.
- In the Pick A Task list, click View Installed Printers Or Fax Printers.
- Right-click the icon representing the shared printer, choose Sharing, and then, on the Sharing tab, select the Do Not Share This Printer option button.
- Click OK.
To turn off printer sharing on a computer running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE, follow these steps:
- Click Start, choose Settings, and then choose Printers.
- Right-click the printer you want to stop sharing and choose Sharing.
- Select Not Shared, and then click OK.
Making Remote Printing Painless
In the home networking world, there are few things more horrifying than when you print a document, your computer says everything is fine, but nothing comes out of the printer. But don't despair! There are a few things you can check to clear up most of your printing problems.
- Check the printer itself to ensure it has power, paper, and either ink or toner. You should also look out for any error lights or messages on the printer. If the printer isn't responding, either press the Reset button (if it has one) or try turning it off and back on—the printer might just have gotten stuck in a process and needs your help to start over.
- Check every wire you can get your hands on. One of the most common causes of network printing problems is that someone moved a printer or unplugged it and forgot to reconnect it.
- Check the Printers And Other Hardware tool in Control Panel to make sure the printer is active. If a printer is dimmed in Printers And Other Hardware, it is inactive. To activate it, you need to delete the printer, unplug it, and plug it back in.
- Check to make sure the proper printer drivers are installed on the host computer and on the computer from which you are trying to print. If the drivers are installed, try deleting them and reinstalling them. You should also visit the manufacturer's Web site to ensure you have the most recent drivers for your printer.
- In the Printers And Other Hardware tool in Control Panel, right-click the printer and choose Open to display any pending jobs for the printer. If a job is listed but it isn't going through, consider deleting the print job to free up the printer. You can delete a job by right-clicking it and choosing Delete.
- Bear in mind that your network might just be slow, whether because of your shared Internet access or because the computer to which your printer is connected was conserving power until you contacted it about printing your document. On my little network I have had to wait a minute or two for a job to go through, so do give your printer some time to get on the job.
Key Points
- Windows treats printers as any other network component, meaning you can share them, protect them, or remove them from the network at any time.
- Attaching a printer to a computer on your network is sufficient if all of your computers run Windows XP, but if you have computers running Windows Me or Windows 98 SE on your network, you'll need to run the Add A Printer Wizard on those computers so they'll know about the network printer.
- Printing to a network printer is no different than printing to a printer that's attached to your computer. If you want to use another printer on your network, just select that printer using the Name down arrow in your program's Print dialog box.
- If you find yourself using the same printer all the time, you can set it as your computer's default printer.
- In Windows Me and Windows 98 SE, you can protect a printer by requiring anyone who wants to use the printer to type in a password.
- You can always turn off printer sharing if you have an important job or remove it from your network entirely if you're going to replace the printer with a new one.
Last Updated: November 14, 2002
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