Are you tired of walking past 18 cubicles, the entire accounting staff, and the water cooler every time you print something? Is there a printer closer to your desk you’d like to use but you don’t want to ask tech support because they will complain about you wasting their time with such a menial task?

Finding and Connecting the Network Printer

Here’s a quick and easy “how to” on connecting to a network printer so you won’t need to ask tech support to do it.

1) Casually walk by the printer you want to add and make note of its name (i.e. Hewlett Packard DeskJet 1220C).
2) Go back to your PC and hit your “Start” menu.
3) Open “Control Panel” (this may be located under “My Computer”).

4) Click on your “Printers and Faxes” icon.

5) When the screen opens, you’ll see a link for “Add a printer.” Click here.
6) A “Searching for network printers” message will pop up followed by a list of printers that are connected to your Internet.
7) If the name of your printer appears on the list, double-click on it. If it didn’t appear, you can manually type it in the search field to find it.
8) Once you double click on the printer, your PC should give you the option to connect to the printer. Click OK.
9) You should be connected and able to print to the new, closer printer.
10)  Take a long lunch and revel in your tech savvy-ness.

Printer Wizard Help

Your PC may have a Printer Wizard installed to help walk you through the printer installation process.
1) Open your “Start” menu and click on “Control Panel.”
2) Click on “Printers and Faxes” and then the “Add a printer” link.
3) The Printer Wizard will automatically open. Click “Next” at the bottom of the window.

4) On the next screen you want to select the option “A network printer, or a
printer attached to another computer.” Then click “Next.”

5) Click on “Browse for a printer” and hit “Next.”

6) The final step will ask you if you want to make this new printer your default printer, you can choose “Yes” or “No” and then click Next.

7) The final window tells you that you have successfully completed the wizard and you can click “Finish” to close.