Printer is one of the necessary resources in case your work has to deal with papers and related material. To use the printing services, you need to have a printer attached to you computer either that is a local printer that serves your computer only or that is a over the network printer or shared printer.

Local printer:

Local printers are printers that serve your computers only and nothing else apart from it. You can do all your printing through your local printer without any issue. There are subtle chances that your computer detects the printer once you plug it in your system running on Windows 7. If the automatically does not start the installation wizard, you can follow the instructions below to add a printer:

  • Click on the Start Menu and then Control Panel: click on Hardware and Sound and then Printers.
  • In the Printer options, use the Add a printer option to add a printer. And opt to Add a local printer from the options given.
  • You will be asked to Choose a printer port: select Use and existing port option and recommended printer port both and click Next.
  • Select the make and model of the printer and click Next on the Install the printer driver page. There might be instances where your printer will not be listed rather you are going to have a CD for the installation of the drivers. Use the Have disk option to load drivers from the CD. You can even have Windows Update on the device drivers in case you do not have the CD.
  • On completion of these steps and a few more optional ones, click Finish.

You can then take a test page print to make sure that you have your printer installed at the right position and working correctly.

Network, Wireless or Bluetooth printer:

Local printer is not the only solution to your printing demands.  You can opt for a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer for your services. You need to make sure the class of printer that you wish to add that will be written on the printer. This would help you getting appropriate steps done while installing. Once you have got the name of the printer, follow the instructions below:

  • Click on the Start Menu, Control Panel and then Hardware and Sounds: click on Printers under the section.
  • Click on the Add a printer service and select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer from the list.
  • You are going to have a number of options if there are numerous printers on the network that you are on. You can select the printer of your choice. One thing worth noticing is that you are going to have all the printers that are connected to your Active directory only. You cannot access any printer that are not in the same domain as your computer.
  • On moving next, your computer might ask you for the driver or the administrator password. Make these final settings done and click Finish after all the optional steps.

You can now use the network printer through your system to print all the documents that you want.