How to Connect a Printer to a Laptop or Computer?

USB, Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi Direct, plus what to do when the printer connects but your computer still won't print to it.

For a USB printer, plug the cable into the printer and the computer, switch the printer on, and wait about a minute. Windows 11 and macOS both detect it and finish the setup on their own in most cases. For a wireless printer, get it onto the same Wi-Fi network your computer uses, either from the printer's own screen or the free setup app from the maker (HP Smart, Epson Smart Panel, Canon PRINT, Brother Mobile Connect), then add it under Settings on Windows or System Settings on a Mac.

You almost certainly do not need the disc in the box. Windows Update, Apple's AirPrint and the Mopria standard now handle driverless printing for most printers sold since roughly 2012, so the full manufacturer software is worth installing only if you need to scan or want ink levels and head-cleaning tools. The step that actually catches people out is not the connecting. It is the wireless printer that prints today and shows "offline" tomorrow, which has a specific cause and a permanent fix, both covered near the end.

What you need before you start

• Your Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and password, copied from somewhere exact rather than typed from memory. Entering a long WPA2 password on a printer with four arrow keys and no "show password" option is where most first attempts fail, before the password is even wrong. The phone app skips that keyboard entirely.
• For a USB connection, a USB-B cable. That is the squarish "printer" plug at the printer end, with a normal USB-A or USB-C plug at the computer end. Manufacturers stopped putting this cable in the box years ago, and a 2 metre one costs a couple of pounds. A handful of 2024-onward models use USB-C at both ends instead, so check the socket on the back before buying.
• The printer within range of the router during setup, even if it lives elsewhere afterwards. Wi-Fi does not need line of sight once paired, but a weak signal during the initial handshake produces a "could not connect" message that looks exactly like a wrong password.
• The 2.4GHz band switched on. Most inkjets under about £150, current models included, have a 2.4GHz-only radio and cannot see a 5GHz network at all. There is more on this in the troubleshooting section.

Connecting over USB

This is the route with the fewest things that can go wrong, and it is the right choice for one computer at one desk. The trade-off: only that computer can print, and only while it is switched on.

Windows 11

1. Connect the cable and switch the printer on.
2. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners.
3. The printer usually appears within a minute, with its driver pulled from Windows Update automatically. If it does not, click Add device, wait for the scan, then follow Add manually if that option appears.

Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, but if you are still on it, the path is Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners > Add a printer or scanner.

macOS

1. Connect the cable and switch the printer on.
2. If macOS offers to download software from the manufacturer, allow it.
3. If nothing happens, open System Settings > Printers & Scanners (System Preferences on macOS Monterey and earlier), click Add Printer, select the printer, and let macOS choose the driver. It usually picks Secure AirPrint, which needs no download.

Can other computers use a USB printer? Yes, through Windows printer sharing or macOS Printer Sharing, but the host computer has to be awake whenever anyone prints. For two or more people it is less hassle to put the printer on Wi-Fi.

Connecting a wireless printer to your network

There are two stages: get the printer onto your Wi-Fi, then add it on the computer. Three ways to do the first stage.

Option 1: the printer's own screen

On any model with a proper touchscreen, open Setup > Network (wording varies), choose Wireless Setup Wizard, pick your network from the list and type the password. This is the fastest route when the hardware has a real on-screen keyboard.

Option 2: the manufacturer's app (usually the smoothest)

Install the maker's app on a phone that is already on your Wi-Fi. It finds the unconfigured printer over Bluetooth or its temporary hotspot, hands over your network details, and sets up printing and scanning on the phone at the same time.

Option 3: the WPS button

Press and hold WPS on the printer until its light flashes, then press WPS on the router within two minutes. The two swap the network password directly, with no typing. Convenient when it works, but rely on it less than you used to: after well-documented weaknesses in the WPS PIN system (including the "Pixie Dust" attack), several UK ISPs now ship routers with WPS switched off or removed from the interface. Check the router first.

Adding the printer on your computer

Once the printer is on the network:

Windows 11: go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > Add device. If it does not appear after a scan, choose Add manually, then Add a printer using an IP address or hostname, and enter the printer's IP address. You can read that from the printer's network menu or print its network configuration page.

macOS: go to System Settings > Printers & Scanners > Add Printer. The printer appears under its Bonjour name. Select it, and macOS configures AirPrint on its own for most models.

How do you know both are on the same network? On a dual-band router, "MyWiFi" and "MyWiFi-5G" behave as two separate networks when it comes to finding a printer, even though it feels like one. If the printer joined the 2.4GHz name, put your laptop on that same name while you add it. Once the printer is added by IP address, the band no longer matters.

Wi-Fi Direct: printing with no router involved

Wi-Fi Direct makes the printer broadcast its own network that a laptop joins directly. It is useful in a rented flat where you cannot touch the router, at an event, or when you simply do not want the printer on the main network.

Enable Wi-Fi Direct in the printer's network menu and read the network name and password off its panel or printed info sheet. On the laptop, join that network the way you would join any other Wi-Fi network, then add the printer by the IP address shown on the panel.

The catch: while the laptop is connected to the printer this way, it often loses normal internet access, because the single Wi-Fi radio cannot hold both connections at once. That is fine for a quick print and awkward as a permanent arrangement. A laptop with a second connection (wired Ethernet, or a USB Wi-Fi adapter) can run both at once.

Do you actually need to install drivers?

Usually not.

• macOS: AirPrint has been built into macOS and iOS since 2010 and covers the large majority of printers made since about 2012. Add the printer and print, with no download.
• Windows: Windows Update carries drivers for most mainstream printers. Windows 11 also increasingly prints through the Mopria standard, an IPP-based universal method (the Mopria Alliance was formed in 2013 by Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox to standardise exactly this). Windows 11 version 24H2 introduced Windows protected print mode, which prints through that universal path and drops model-specific driver software. Microsoft has said it plans to stop servicing older third-party print drivers over the next few years.

Install the full manufacturer package when you need:

• Scanning or fax on an all-in-one. The basic driver prints, but it frequently will not scan.
• Ink or toner levels and maintenance tools, such as print head cleaning and alignment.
• Specific controls like secure "release at the printer" PIN printing, poster printing, or unusual paper sizes.

One thing to ignore: older guides tell you to set up "Google Cloud Print". Google shut that service down on 31 December 2020, so any instructions that rely on it lead nowhere.

When it connects but the computer still won't print

The printer shows "offline" but it is clearly switched on

In Windows, open the print queue (Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > your printer > Open print queue), open the Printer menu, and untick Use Printer Offline if it is ticked. If that option is greyed out, restart the print spooler: press the Windows key, type services, open the Services app, right-click Print Spooler and choose Restart. That step alone clears a large share of offline cases.

It printed yesterday, not today

Most often the router handed the printer a different IP address overnight, and your computer is still trying the old one. Rebooting the printer fixes it until the next time. The permanent fix is a DHCP reservation on the router: bind the printer's MAC address to one fixed IP, then remove the printer on the computer and add it back using that address. Renaming the printer does nothing here, because the cause is the router's lease rather than the printer.

The laptop cannot see the printer at all

Check three things, in this order:

1. Same network name, not the 5GHz twin of it. Band steering on routers like the BT Smart Hub 2 and Sky Max Hub hides this by using one name for both bands.
2. Not a guest network. Guest mode and "client isolation" deliberately stop devices on the network from talking to each other, which blocks printing.
3. The printer actually joined Wi-Fi. Print its network configuration page and look for a real IP address, something like 192.168.x.x. An address starting 169.254 means it failed to join, and 0.0.0.0 means no connection at all.

Several copies of the same printer in the list

Windows adds "(Copy 1)" and "(Copy 2)" when it re-detects a printer on a changed IP address. Remove all of them, fix the address with a DHCP reservation, then add one clean queue.

Everything looks right and it still will not print

Give the printer a static IP address from its own control panel, inside your router's range but outside the range it hands out automatically (its DHCP pool), and add it on the computer by that address. This skips network discovery completely, which is the part that fails most.

Which connection should you use?

Ethernet is worth considering even though this is about laptops. If the printer sits near the router, a network cable removes every wireless failure mode at once, and the laptop still prints to it wirelessly, because the printer is on the network either way.

Confirming it is properly connected

Print a network configuration page or printer status report from the printer's own menu (often under Setup > Reports, or by holding a button combination on models with no screen). It lists the IP address, the network name the printer has joined, and the signal strength, which confirms not just that the printer is on a network but that it is on the right one.

Then send a test print from the computer. On Windows, the printer's page in Printers & scanners has a Print test page button under Printer properties. On a Mac, Printers & Scanners has Print Test Page in the printer's options.

Related guides

• Why Your Computer Suddenly Can't Find the Printer - for when the printer's own status page shows it online but it still isn't listed on your PC.
• Why Is My Printer Offline When It's Connected? (And How to Fix It) - the full version of the offline-but-connected mismatch.
• Printer Offline in Windows 11? How to Fix It - the Windows 11 specifics once the connection itself is confirmed working.
• How to Connect an HP Printer to Wi-Fi - step-by-step for HP models, including the ones with no screen.
• Laptop Won't Connect to Wi-Fi? Fixes That Actually Work - if it isn't only the printer struggling to reach your network.