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Printing over a LAN, or in other words, sharing a printer, allows anyone within your internal network to access and use the printer. While printing over a LAN for multiple users may lead to potential overload and occasional printing errors, these issues are rare in smaller network setups.
Furthermore, you have complete control over print jobs on the printer, eliminating concerns about errors arising from printer sharing and enabling others to print over the LAN. If you are unfamiliar with the process of printing over a LAN, this Mytour article guides you through sharing a printer over a LAN—a fundamental feature on printers that you should know when using them.
Guide to Printing over a LAN, Sharing a Printer in the Network
Step 1: Firstly, open the Start Menu, search for 'Control Panel', and access the displayed results.
Step 2: In the management section of Control Panel, you'll find a list of features; click on View devices and printers under Hardware and Sound.
Step 3: In the devices and printers section, choose the printer you want to share for LAN printing, then right-click and select Printer properties.
Step 4: Next, in the Properties section of your printer, switch to the sharing tab, check share this printer, and then choose Apply > OK.
That completes the process of printing over a LAN, sharing the printer with individuals on the internal network. However, those who want to connect need to know your LAN address.
How to check IP address
Step 1: First, press the Windows + R key combination, then type the cmd command to open the integrated Command Prompt tool.
Step 2: Once in Command Prompt, type the command 'ipconfig' to check your machine's IP address.
Step 3: Immediately, the result will display a long list of commands, and you only need to pay attention to the line with the IPv4 Address, such as 192.168.1.43 in this example.
Step 4: Now, reopen the Run dialog from step 1 and enter the command \\ IP address, using the example from this article like \\ 192.168.1.43. Refer to the image below and input accordingly.
Step 5: Instantly, you'll connect to the printer and Connect to start printing over the LAN.
Once the connection is established, you can now use the shared printer. Note that printing is only possible when the host machine is powered on and connected to the same network.
This article provides a guide on sharing a printer and printing over a LAN, allowing multiple users to utilize the printer simultaneously. Sharing a printer becomes more challenging when computers use different operating systems; refer to how to share a printer between different operating systems here.
With multiple users, printing becomes convenient, but it requires careful attention and regular printer maintenance to prevent issues like paper jams and other printing errors.
