Setup your new Wireless Printer

There are lots of advantages to purchasing a wireless printer. Firstly, by adding a wireless printer to your small office or home it will help diminish the mess of tangled cables. It will also enable you to print from anywhere in your home, and will allow the whole family to share a single printer.

Follow our step by step guide below to help you set up your new wireless printer network.

• Determine the type of wireless printer

You will need a wireless router to be able to connect your new wireless printer to your home network, so first of all you need to make sure your router is up and running. Most new computers and wireless printers come equipped with either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi capabilities. If your printer is not wireless, you can easily purchase a wireless card that plugs direct into the USB port.

• Select a good location for the printer

The wireless printer needs to be set up in a location in your home or office where it will be easily accessible to everyone. There should be ample space for paper, printer ink and other supplies. If you are using a Bluetooth wireless connection, you may want to give this thought since Bluetooth printers have a much smaller wireless range than Wi-Fi printers.

• Enable printer sharing

The server computer’s operating system must be informed that the printer you are adding the network is a wireless printer. (The server computer is the one the printer is connected to). In Window’s Vista, this is done by accessing the network settings in the control panel and then activating file and printer sharing in the local area network settings. For Window’s XP operating systems, go to ‘Start’ and then ‘Control Panel’ and go into ‘Printers and other hardware’. Go to ‘View installed printers or fax printers’ right click on your printer and select ‘sharing’, then select ‘share this printer’. Give the printer a specific name and click ‘ok’.

• Add the wireless printer to any other computers on your network

The other computers on the network must also be setup to use the wireless printer. If you are using Window’s Vista you will need to open the control panel in classic view and then open printers. Right click on the printer that you want to share, and then open ‘properties’. In properties, check the box that allows the printer to be a shared device.

If you are using Windows XP please follow the tips below.

1. Open the control panel, go to printers and faxes, and click on ‘Add a printer’.

2. This will take you into a Wizard to find the printer you shared previously.

3. Click ‘next’ until you are at the Local or Network printer page.

4. Select ‘A Network or a printer attached to another computer’ and then click next.

5. Now click ‘Browse for a printer’ and click next. This will display your workgroup; the PC’s connected to it and any printers that are attached to them.

6. Click on the wireless printer you shared earlier and click ‘next’. (This should begin installing the driver automatically, if not you may need to get the CD software that came with the printer.

7. Now click ‘yes’ to make the wireless printer the default printer for this PC (or No if the computer already has one attached to it).

8. Click finish.

• Wireless printer troubleshooting

Both this computer and the one that is wireless might need to be rebooted after the installation process.

If you can’t see the computer that it is attached to, you will need to double check that all computers have the same network name. To check this go to the control panel under performance and maintenance, and click ‘see all basic information about your computer’. From here click on your computer name and your workgroup will be displayed.

If you are still not seeing the printer, make sure it’s switched on. If the printer still doesn’t work, you may need to install the printer driver using the software CD that it came with.