can I hook a printer up to a router so all three computers can print off of it?

Answer 1

Yes, if your printer has a nic card. But you can network the printer by hooking it to a computer on the network and sharing it.

To do that you install the printer on a computer, then right click the printer icon in the printer folder, choose properties, then click on the sharing tab and choose share this printer.

Answer 2

If your printer can hook up to a router...then yes.

Otherwise your can get something called a print server that will allow you to hook up a usb or parallel printer to a router.

You can also just hook the printer up to one computer and share it with the other computers....the only draw back to this set-up is the computer that has the printer hooked up into it has to be on for printing to work.

Answer 3

If the printer has a built in print server (uncommon) or if you have a standalone print server (expensive) you can do this. Otherwise, you can connect the printer to any PC in the network, and share the printer from that PC. Then all the other computers on the LAN can print to it. Be warned though, this will slight affect the performance of the machine to which you attach the printer.

Answer 4

You would have to get a print server in order for all computers to be able to print to it without a specific one having to always be on. By that, I mean you could share the printer from the pc it is currently installed on and everyone could print to it, but the main pc it is connected to would have to be on as well for anyone to print to it. A print server would take the place of that always on machine. If your printer has network capabilities built in you should be able to plug it into the router directly and assign it an IP address.

Answer 5

Yes, you can. Actually, hook a print server to the router, and the printer to the print server.

Answer 6

You need a printer that has a network interface or you need a jetdirect box to be able to do this.