Sharing a Printer

With many homes having more than one computer, sharing a desktop printer among 2 or more computers has become commonplace. As in many other situations, there are several ways to share a desktop printer.

A/B box

The A/B box method of sharing involves using what is called an A/B box. In this situation, two computers are connected to the A/B box by cable. The desktop printer is also connected by cable. One type of A/B box requires you to turn a swtich to disconnect from one computer and go to the other. The desktop printer on the more common A/B box simply becomes available to the first PC that needs it and after completion, is available to the next one. Naturally, this is not a favorite among users.

Network Attached Desktop Printer

With the network attached desktop printer set up, the printer is simply a device with an address that is connected to a router either via cable or wireless. As such, it would have an IP address the same as any computer on the network. This is a little more expensive than other ways but is less trouble. It takes a desktop printer with special circuitry and is more commonly seen in an office environment.

Wireless

Many home users have set up a wireless network to connect their multiple computers to the internet and to each other. In most situations, all computers on the network that have desktop printers have configured Windows to have the printers be shared printers. This is a simple matter of changing a setting in the Control Panel. Using this setup, all printers on the network would be available to all users and not just to the one to which they are attached. Another method would be to have a printer with wireless circuitry be connected to the router on the network and shared that way.
As indicated there are multiple ways to share a desktop printer among users. In my home, we have 2 desktop computers, and a notebook. We have 3 desktop printers that are connected to the 2 desktop computers and are set to be shared. When the notebook is online, it has access to any of the 3 printers. If we are printing in black and white, we use the desktop laser printer. For color, we take our choice between the 2 desktop color printers. It works and it works well.

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