How can I connect my printer to my router, in order to print wireless from my laptop? -

I just recently invested in a router. I have a home pc and printer which are connected. I want to be able to print from my laptop wireless, so how would I connect the printer to the router? I m thinking I might need a cable of some sort but im not sure. The ports on the printer are the size of the ones you find on a phone jack and the ones on the router are huge...any suugestions?

Most printers now-a-days have a USB interface. (This is a little larger than a phone jack but completely different.) If that s what you have, then you need to get a USB adapter that allows you to connect the USB printer directly into your router. You could also get a wireless print server which does the same thing (printer connects to the device and the device connects to the router but also allows for sireless connections.)

You will need to find out first if your printer can be connected to the router directly (providing the make and model would have been a great help). By what you are describing it sounds like it will not (may be an all in one, fax, copier and printer) If not then you can leave the printer set up on the desktop PC and have it shared, so that any other computer on your network can print to it. Only problem being that the PC has to be on in order to print from the laptop... We need to start with the model of printer first.

If your pc is connected to the network then you do not need to connect the printer to the router. all you ll need to do is to set your printer as a shared printer. how you ll do this is by going to your printers and fax folder and right click on the printer you use and select sharing on the menu, when the sharing window pops up select Share this Printer , now you ll select your network name for the printer (Make it one word, otherwise it won t work) , then click ok. Ok now we should be done with the PC, let s move on to the laptop. Go to your Printer and Fax folder on the laptop and click on the Add Printer button and click Next , Select the Network printer option then click Next . If it s not already selected chose Browse for a printer then click Next . Select the name of you PC on the network and double click til a list expands, your printer should be in there (If not then, we missed something in the PC portion of this setup(Which I doubt)) then click Next , Now it s asking you if you want to make it the default printer, i m guessing your going to want to select Yes then click next , Now your almost done, click Finish and it may take a minute to load your drivers over the network. Good Luck!

If you are sure that your printer does not have a network card (bigger holes) then you will need to buy a small / cheap print server. (a little box) There will be two cables coming out of the back of the printer, one is the power cable, the other is either a parallel (large connection with lots of pins) or a usb cable (small metal rectangle) The parallel cable or usb cable will plug into the print server (box) and then you will need a network cable to go from the print server (little box) to your router. Just pop into you local PC store and see about a cheap one. Before you go, you will need to know if you printer connects using a usb cable or parallel cable Hopefully this helps, Peco