Sharing a printer on home network

If you go wireless that problem is easily solved. I am not aware of any way to solve your problem unless you have some sort of cable linking your computers together. In your case I would just use a floppy disk, jump drive or CD and take it to the living room computer and print it down there.

 

We havent gone wireless yet, we just email stuff to be printed to the computer with the printer.

 

How do you share your internet connection?

 

I can't remember where the option is. I think it is in the printer setup. Try that first, then if not try the home network wizard.

To try in printer area, go to control panel/ printers and click on the printer icon. Try in properties and see if there is a "sharing" option.

If not, ask to install a new printer, one of the questions may be "do you want to share this printer," say yes and follow instructions.

If it isn't there since you share net connection you must know about home network wizard. Turn both computers on, connect to the internet, run the wizard on the internet connected machine, then run it on the other machine. Watch for printer sharing options.

 

As Exscentric said,

if you are using XP, go to "control panel" on the pc to which the printer is installed; then go to "printers and faxes." Clicking your installed printer should bring up a list of options on the left side of the screen. One of them is "Share Printer."

If you are sharing the internet but not actually sharing files, you may want to consult the "Network Connections" option under "Control Panel." The wizard on the left side should help you set up the home network.

Once your printer is shared, it's as simple as installing a new printer as normal on your other pc. Instead of "Local Printer" you should see an option that says "Network printer." From there, find the printer you shared and finish the wizard. This is how I set up network printing on my laptop.

Hope this helps just a little.

 

Depending on how you share your internet connection, it could be as easy as enabling printer/file sharing. If you dont have a network setup yet, you can buy a router with a printer port on it (they sell them in Parallel port, USB, and FireWire flavors).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127002

If you don't have your printer shared through a router (and you are just wiring one computer to the other), then the computer with the printer will have to be on constantly for the other computer to print to it. With a router, you can plug your internet connection and printer into the router and use both from either computer.

Of course, it may be more complicated if you have DSL or dialup.

 

It's pretty simple, assuming you're running WinXP and "sharing" your connection through a router. As long as you have file/printer sharing turned on both machines, use the printer's setup CD on the computer that doesn't have the printer plugged into it and, when prompted, select a "network" printer. It will search your network for an installed printer on the other machines on your network and should find it without any trouble.

 

When we had our old computer up and running, we used the 'sneaker network'.

You just copy whatever you wanted printed onto a floppy or USB drive, and walked it to the new computer and printer.

Slow, but it worked.

In Christ,
Trotter