A lot of people have difficulties connecting their Macs to preferred printers. Part of the reason is following the same protocol used with Windows OS, which in this case doesn’t apply. Here is the valid way of ensuring a successful Mac to printer connection, and even connect several MacBook to the same printer network.
Sharing One Printer
Apples printer connection procedure is directly connected to its in-built Bonjour Protocol. On the apple menu, go to System Preference and Click on the Printers & Scanners option. This will direct you to another pop-up box with the list of printers in your created network. You only need to select the specific printer you want to connect to and confirm successful connection via the Sharing Preferences option. Note that the Bonjour Protocol works seamlessly with Linux OS. However, you will need additional software to successfully link the Windows OS system.
Sharing to a Wider Printer Network
This tip is especially useful when connecting additional Macs on a printer with no in-built Wi-Fi connection. You follow the same procedure; on your primary MacBook, go to System Preferences then Sharing and Click on Printer Sharing. Once more you get a list of printers you can share and you can tick the option ‘Share with Everyone’. Only those MacBooks with access to your established network will be able to print to your device.
Then on every Mac you want linked to your printer, go to System Preferences and select Printers and Scanners. There should be a Plus (+) button on the bottom of the Pop-up window. The shared printer will appear which you can connect the extra Macs to; you will identify it because it will be the only printer that is ‘Bonjour Shared’ on the network. You can also change the name of the printer by customising it to include your name for easy identification.
That’s all there is to sharing any Mac to a Printer and even add more MacBooks to your network. Just follow the above laid out procedure and from the list of Printers provided you can make all the changes and customisations required. Linux OS is universal thus works seamlessly with all other OS platforms; it’s only the Windows OS that will need additional features to ensure successful connection.
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