How Printer Sharing Really Works
For many people the idea of printer sharing is a seamless process whereby they send a print job to the printer they are assigned to and the printer spews out the job as commanded. Some people are interested in how printer sharing is accomplished and those are the people that will usually call the IT department and ask how printer sharing works. Let’s save you the phone call, allow IT to do their job, and explain in a very quick nutshell how printer sharing works and how your print job gets from your desk to your assigned printer.
The first thing IT has to do is determine how to assign the network ready printers they will be installing. In most cases each department will get their own printer or, if the departments are small enough, then a printer will get shared among the departments. Once the printer details are determined each printer location is given a letter or a name.
Some companies prefer letters because they are easier to deal with and some prefer names because they offer more detail and make programming the network a little easier. Whatever the choice the designation of the printer sharing is what is used to create the printer path on the network. So let us say that the IT department has decided to call the printer you will use sales. That is how they will address it when they set up the printer sharing on the network.
Hooking It Up And Away We Go
The next step is to run a network cable to the designated printer sharing location and then set up the printer in that location. Since the printers today can come network ready it will already have an Ethernet card in it that your IT people can plug in to. One the printer is plugged in and set up the next thing to do is load the drivers on the server so that the network can see and use the printer. Each workstation will also be loaded with drivers so that they can connect to the printer. Once all of that is done the printer sharing network is almost done.
The last step is to do what is called pointing your computer at the printer. When IT sets up your computer to use the sales printer it will go into the printer setup portion of Windows, or whatever operating system you are using, and choose the sales printer as your printer sharing default printer. Once that is done you are all set to print.
