Attaching a wired printer to a device and printing stuff is pretty straightforward. You just need to choose the right cable and plug one end of it into the printer and the other end into the PC or network, and you are good to go.
But connecting to a wireless printer is tricky. Even if everything is smooth, it still is more complicated than the wired setup.
One thing that you have to keep in mind is that there is more than one type of wireless printing. There are Bluetooth-enabled printers, Wifi enabled printers and many more.
Here we will mainly be talking about Wi-Fi printers.
But even as we talk about just the Wi-Fi enabled printers, there is more than one way to connect your printer and for different types of printers, these steps keep altering. Thus it is almost impossible to cover all the alterations in detail in one short article.
So here, we will cover the key information that you will need and some troubleshooting strategies.
After this, you will probably be able to connect your wireless printer to the device or network, even if you face some problems in the process.
The Other Side of the Equation
Connecting a printer by Wi-Fi depends largely on what exactly you want to connect to. It could be a Wi-Fi access point on a network, individual computers directly or a smartphone or tablet.
First, let’s see how we connect it to an access point.
For this discussion, we are assuming that you have set up the Wi-Fi network yourself and are familiar with its settings, mainly the security settings, if not, you can just contact someone to give you some information. You will mostly need the network’s SSID (its name), the password and the security protocol that your network uses, be it the WEP, WPA or WPA2.
Plus, here we have assumed that either you have made no changes to your other settings and if you have, you are aware of them and know the adjustments for the installation procedure to accommodate them.
Connecting to an Access Point
First thing is that the computer where you are installing the driver must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. After this, there are just two steps to connect the printer:
Firstly, The printer and the network must be connected through Wi-Fi and then the driver needs to be installed so that it knows how to send the print commands to the printer.
The way you establish the Wi-Fi connection depends totally on the printer. There are some cases where you will find a setup wizard in the printer menus which will walk you through the process, asking you to enter the network Service Set Identifier(SSID), for instance.
Whereas in others, there will be a separate menu option to choose and fill individually.
Some will even have the driver installation program on the disc which will have all the information that you have to fill in.
After the Wi-Fi connection is working, the rest becomes pretty easy. Now, if you connected the printer using the installation program, just continue to install the driver. If you set up the connection using the printer menus, run the installation program and pick Wi-Fi as the option.
Connecting Directly
Whether you are able to connect directly to a Wi-Fi device for wireless printing depends upon your printer. To directly connect you need either the ad-hoc or Wi-Fi Direct modes.
The Ad-hoc mode was the original option that was used for connecting without any access point.
Wi-Fi Direct is a little similar in that it allows a direct connection but it is very easy and simple to use. But it is also new, so many printers do not support it yet.
If your computer doesn’t support either of the two modes then connecting without an access point is not an option for you.
If the printer provides the ad-hoc network you can typically connect just like the access point, by entering the SSID and the other details and then installing the driver on the PC.
For Wi-Fi direct, you have to just click on the Wi-Fi icon on the computer and connect to the printers Wi-Fi network and you are all set. It is as simple as that. Beyond that, you just might have to run through a standard installation program for the driver to confirm if the program has found the right partner.
Smartphones and Tablets
It is a little tricky to directly connect a smartphone or tablet to the printer, simply because most manufacturers might not offer a printing app for any given phone or tablet. And even if the app is there, you might not be able to connect the phone directly to your device. It is most likely that you have to connect both to an access point and print in that manner.
Apple’s AirPrint though has made it a lot easier to print from iOS devices to compatible printers, but here too you have to print through an access point, with both the devices connected to the same WiFi Network. Using AirPrint you can easily print from the supported apps by selecting Print, choosing an available printer and then setting the number of copies and the other options.
You can use The Mopria Print Service app on android to print. It uses the built-in print feature of Android 4.4 to allow setup free printing to the compatible printers. Many printers are now getting compatible with the Mopria Alliance. The main purpose of the organization is to provide simple wireless printing from mobile phones and tablets.
Also, all the printers with the Wi-Fi Direct feature could be connected to any phone with Wi-Fi quite easily, just by connecting the phone to the printer’s network.
