Setting Up a Printer via IP Address

Back in the day, almost all printers (save big business class laser printers) were hooked up in a standard fashion – via parallel port on the back of a computer.  However, with the saturation of home networks, it’s difficult to find a laser printer these days that does not  have an ethernet port.

It would be really easy if all you had to do was plug in a cable to the printer and the router and you’d be functioning, and indeed, some printers come with software that take the muss out of hook up, but many times it’s not that easy.

Enter IP printing.

When you hook up the printer to the router, my recommendation is to look into the documentation to find out how to configure a static IP address.  This is an IP address that will always be the same and always stay with your printer.  You may want to make sure it is not in the DHCP scope of your router or there could be a conflict down the road.

Once you know the IP address that you’re going to use follow these instructions in Windows.

1. Open up your Printer Connections dialog (from your start menu).
2. Click on Add Printer
3. Click Next and on the next screen choose Local Printer Attached to This Computer .  Uncheck Automatically Detect and Install Plug and Play Printer. Click Next
4. On the next screen, select Create a New Port and pick Standard TCP/IP Port from the dropdown.
5. This opens up a new dialog . Click Next. On this screen, fill in the IP address of the new printer. Don’t worry about the second blank as it will fill itself in. Clicking Next will configure an IP port on your computer. This port will allow your computer to speak directly to that IP address.
6. When the IP Port is completed configuring, you will be able to choose the make and model of the printer you are installing. It is recommended you use drivers provided with the printer, though if the printer is listed you can safely use the Windows included driver. It just likely has fewer features.

That’s it.  Make sure you setup a static IP address for the printer. If you lose power or shut the printer off, you don’t want to have to reconfigure all your home computers to use a new IP address.