Lab-04 Add a Printer

Lab 04: Add a Printer

4.1 Objective

Having completed this experiment, you will be able to:

1. Connect a printer with PC
2. Share the printer
3. Manage the printer

Apparatus: Printer, PC

4.2 Introduction

Printer:
A printer is a device that accepts text and graphic output from a computer and transfers the
information to paper, usually to standard size sheets of paper. Printers vary in size, speed,
sophistication, and cost. In general, more expensive printers are used for higher-resolution color
printing.
Personal computer printers can be distinguished as impact or non-impact printers. Early impact
printers worked something like an automatic typewriter, with a key striking an inked impression
on paper for each printed character. The dot-matrix printer was a popular low-cost personal
computer printer. It's an impact printer that strikes the paper a line at a time. The best-known
non-impact printers are the inkjet printer, of which several makes of low-cost color printers are
an example, and the laser printer. The inkjet sprays ink from an ink cartridge at very close range
to the paper as it rolls by. The laser printer uses a laser beam reflected from a mirror to attract ink
(called toner) to selected paper areas as a sheet rolls over a drum.
The four printer qualities of most interest to most users are:
Color
Color is important for users who need to print pages for presentations or maps and other pages
where color is part of the information. Color printers can also be set to print only in black-and-
white. Color printers are more expensive to operate since they use two ink cartridges (one color
and one black ink) that need to be replaced after a certain number of pages. Users who don't have
a specific need for color and who print a lot of pages will find a black-and-white printer cheaper
to operate.
Resolution
Printer resolution (the sharpness of text and images on paper) is usually measured in dots per
inch (dpi). Most inexpensive printers provide sufficient resolution for most purposes at 600 dpi.
Speed

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If you do much printing, the speed of the printer becomes important. Inexpensive printers print
only about 3 to 6 sheets per minute. Color printing is slower. More expensive printers are much
faster.
Memory:
Most printers come with a small amount of memory (for example, one megabyte) that can be
expanded by the user. Having more than the minimum amount of memory is helpful and faster
when printing out pages with large images or tables with lines around them (which the printer
treats as a large image).

Printer I/O Interfaces

The most common I/O interface for printers has been the parallel Centronics interface with a 36-
pin plug. In the future, however, new printers and computers are likely to use a serial interface,
especially Universal Serial Bus or FireWire with a smaller and less cumbersome plug.

Printer Languages
Printer languages are commands from the computer to the printer to tell the printer how to format
the document being printed. These commands manage font size, graphics, compression of data
sent to the printer, color, etc. The two most popular printer languages are Postscript and Printer
Control Language.
Postscript is a printer language that uses English phrases and programmatic constructions to
describe the appearance of a printed page to the printer. This printer language was developed by
Adobe in 1985. It introduced new features such as outline fonts and vector graphics. Printers
now come from the factory with or can be loaded with Postscript support. Postscript is not
restricted to printers. It can be used with any device that creates an image using dots such as
screen displays, slide recorders, and image setters.
PCL (Printer Command Language) is an escape code language used to send commands to the
printer for printing documents. Escape code language is so-called because the escape key begins
the command sequence followed by a series of code numbers. Hewlett Packard originally
devised PCL for dot matrix and inkjet printers. Since its introduction, it has become an industry
standard. Other manufacturers who sell HP clones have copied it. Some of these clones are very
good, but there are small differences in the way they print a page compared to real HP printers.
In 1984, the original HP LaserJet printer was introduced using PCL. PCL helped change the
appearance of low-cost printer documents from poor to exceptional quality.

Fonts
A font is a set of characters of a specific style and size within an overall typeface design. Printers
use resident fonts and soft fonts to print documents. Resident fonts are built into the hardware of
a printer. They are also called internal fonts or built-in fonts. All printers come with one or more
resident fonts. Additional fonts can be added by inserting a font cartridge into the printer or

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installing soft fonts to the hard drive. Resident fonts cannot be erased unlike soft fonts. Soft fonts
are installed onto the hard drive and then sent to the computer's memory when a document is
printed that uses the particular soft font. Soft fonts can be purchased in stores or downloaded
from the Internet.
There are two types of fonts used by the printer and screen display, bitmap fonts and outline
fonts. Bitmap fonts are digital representations of fonts that are not scalable. This means they
have a set size or a limited set of sizes. For example, if a document using a bitmap font sized to
24 point is sent to the printer and there is not a bitmap font of that size, the computer will try to
guess the right size. This results in the text looking stretched-out or squashed. Jagged edges are
also a problem with bitmap fonts. Outline fonts are mathematical descriptions of the font that are
sent to the printer. The printer then rasterizes (see raster graphics) or converts them to the dots
that are printed on the paper. Because they are mathematical, they are scalable. This means the
size of the font can be changed without losing the sharpness or resolution of the printed text.
TrueType and Type 1 fonts are outline fonts. Outline fonts are used with Postscript and PCL
printer languages.
How to Add a Printer in Windows 10

Add a Local Printer:

1. Connect the printer to your computer using the USB cable and turn it on.
2. Open the Settings app from the Start menu.

Figure 4.1: setting option

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3. Click Devices.

Figure 4.2: Setting window

4. Click Add a printer or scanner.

Figure 4.3: Setting window

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5. If Windows detects your printer, click on the name of the printer and follow the on-screen
instructions to finish the installation. And you're done.

6. If Windows doesn't find your connected printer, click on "The printer that I want isn't
listed" link.

Figure 4.4: DOSBox DEBUG Command Line

7. Then let the Windows troubleshooting guide help you find your printer. It will search for
available printers and help you download the drivers for them.

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Table 4.5: Add printer window

If that doesn't work, head to your printer manufacturer's website and download the drivers and
installation tools for your printer.

How to Share a Printer in Windows 10

In Windows 10, you can take a printer, plug it into one computer, and then print to it from
another computer. It’s all made possible because of network printer sharing.

Before you can share a printer, it must first be set up, connected and powered on. Click Start >
Settings > Devices, then open the Devices and Printers link. Right-click your printer, then click
Printer properties.

1. Click Start > Settings > Devices, then open the Devices and Printers link. Right-click
your printer, then click Printer properties.

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Table 4.6: Printer properties

2. Select the Sharing tab then check the box to share your printer.

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Table 4.7: HP Deskjet F2400 series Properties Window

Users should take into account, if you are sharing a printer with multiple devices running a
mixture of Windows client architectures – 32 or 64 bit -, you should enable the “Render print
jobs on client computers” option. This will ensure other users can easily install the printer when
connecting over the network

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Table 4.8: HP Deskjet F2400 series Properties Window

Connect to a Windows 10 Shared Printer

After setting up your shared printer, you can connect to it multiple ways.

1. The first method is from within Devices and Printer. Click the Add Printer button, then
click the link, the printer that I want isn’t listed. Choose the Select a shared printer by
name radio box then browse to the printer on your network then click open.

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Table 4.9: Property Window

2. You will be prompted to install the driver. Click Next to complete the installation of the
printer.

Table 4.10: Adding Device Window

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3. That’s it! The printer will now show up in Devices and printers as a local device.

Table 4.11: Printer and device window

4. Another way you can connect to a shared network printer is from within File Explorer.
Open the Network folder, browse the computer containing the shared printer, right-click
it then clicks Connect.

Table 4.12: Printer option

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4.3 Lab Tasks

Q1. Which tool is used to manage printers on a Windows 10 device?

Q2. Write down the steps to share the printer?

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