One of the main advantages we have a network at home or in a company, whether wired or wireless, is the ability to centralize our devices . Long ago a computer peripheral is not needed since these are easily shared.
In the case of printers, peripheral sharing is appreciated more. Apple has, as usual, thought about this issue and bonjour technology is designed, among other things, to share printers comfortably using Mac or Windows environments .
So in Applesfera we show the ways you connect a printer to your home network and share it among all computers. Basically the options boil down to two: having a computer that controls the printer or device type NAT , as a Airport Extreme to share the device via the network.
From a Mac
It is a very simple option if you have more than one computer at home and if we have over one with the printer connected directly. The steps are:
- The first thing to do is to configure your printer on the computer that will act as a "print server" improvised. In Mac basically comes down to detect the printer and add it to the list of printers .
- Once added to access the panel must "Share" to activate the "Share printer".
- Once we meet on the client computer we will have to add the new printer from the "Print & Fax" panel.
- In the "Default" in the options "Add Printer" printer and your name should appear, if not the case manually add the IP address of the computer to which it is connected.
From a PC
If the computer to which the printer is connected to a Windows computer or corporate server, do not despair, the procedure is virtually identical to that before. The first thing you have to do is install Bonjour for Windows on the server computer and configure your printer.
Once this is done, you have to go back and access the Mac back to "Print & Fax" this time by accessing "Add Printer" have to go to the "Windows" tab.
Here we printers connected to the network from a displayed environment Windows , as simple as before. Remember again, that if for some reason you do not get to "see" your printer, you can enter the IP of it manually.
From the Airport Extreme
Everything I've told this very well and is very practical but there is a big problem and the need to constantly connect a computer to use the printer in addition to the inconvenience that this entails, is also a fairly high expense consumption if the computer is dedicated solely to that.
So the next option may be the best, but if you have to change one of the necessary devices no longer comes free so you have to be you decide whether to buy a new product or reuse what you have at home.
This "device" is none other than a Airport Extreme , also serves and does the same the Time Capsule, from which you can share a printer port only connecting your USB to the Airport Extreme.
We do not need any setup, just connect. On the computer from which you want to use the printer have to add as in the other steps, very simple and fast.