Connecting a MacOS computer to a Network Printer

By Ross Madden
Published on January 1, 2012 9:02 am MT
Updated on January 27, 2021 7:46 am MT
Posted in Knowledge Base, Printing

The following directions will instruct you on how to connect a Mac OS X computer to a network printer. While these directions were developed using Mac OS X.7 (10.7 – Lion) older versions of OS X will be similar but not exact. A network printer is a printer that connects directly to the Internet via an Ethernet cable; it does not connect directly to another computer. In order to set up and print to a network printer, your computer must be connected to the Internet.

First, please refer to the following page so that you can be sure to get the proper information about the printer you are about to connect to:
https://cnsit.colostate.edu/kb/printer

1. Open System Preferences and select the Print & Scan (may be Print & Fax for older versions of Mac OS X) item.

2. Click the + sign and you will see the Printer Browser open.

3. Select the ‘IP’ tab/button at the top.

4. Fill in the new form as described below:

Protocol: HP Jetdirect -Socket
Address: Put in the IP Address you got from the actual printer
Queue: Leave this blank
Name: Put in the Printer Name you got from the actual printer
Location: Enter the building and room number where this printer lives
Print Using: Select the company that makes your printer, then select the model number of your printer. If you do not see an exact match, select something that is similar enough – drivers are often universal between similar models.  Mac OS X Lion will attempt to select this automatically, and 95% of the time you can use what it preselects.

5. Now click the Add button.

6. Select the appropriate Installable Options. If you are unsure, leave this as it is and click Continue.

7. Now, open up a web browser and print a test page such as https://www.google.com to make sure the printer is set up properly.

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