A lot of people love DD-WRT routers because they help users take better advantage of the hardware in their networking devices. Simply put, this software offers a wealth of benefits and tools that standard manufacturer software usually lacks. They are extremely popular because of their VPN capabilities, but they are jam-packed with other useful features as well.
Yet another great benefit of this software is the ability to share a printer with users connected to your network. Though many printers offer some sort of setup utility for network sharing, they can sometimes be low quality and unpredictable. If you already have a DD-WRT router, it is much better and easier to configure it on your router and any devices that want to utilize the shared printer. Also, if you are moderately good with computers and following directions, you can complete this in as little as 5 to 15 minutes.
Configuring Your DD-WRT Router to Accept a Connection from Your Printer
To complete these steps, you are going to need two things. First, you will need a DD-WRT capable router with a USB port. Secondly, you will need a printer.
- First, you need to connect your printer to the router and you need to power on the printer.
- Access the web interface of your router by inserting its IP address into your favorite browser. For example, you might type http://192.168.0.1. Find the services tab and then click on the USB tab.
- Now you need to enable two options. First enable ‘Core USB Support. Next, enable ‘USB Printer Support’ and click the save button. Now apply the settings.
Now your printer is seen by the router and can be shared across your network. All you need to do is to configure your computers to send jobs to this printer. The following is the guide to Windows 7.
Sending Jobs to Your Printer in Windows 7
First you will need to configure your Windows device to see the printer before you can actually send print jobs.
- Navigate to Start, Devices and Printers, and click on ‘Add a printer’
- Click ‘Add a Network, Wireless, or Bluetooth Printer’.
- Next, select ‘Add a Printer Using a TCP/IP Address or Hostname’
- Now you need to enter the IP address of your shared printer. Make sure to uncheck the ‘Query the Printer and Automatically Select the Driver to Use’ option.
- Give Windows a chance to try and find your printer. Likely it won’t succeed, so just click ‘Next.’
- Search through the list until you find the type and model of your printer. Then select it.
- Name your printer as you wish.
- Install a driver for your printer on your computer. If you have already installed the driver, you don’t need to do anything except check for updates.
- Give ‘er a spin and try to print a test page to make sure everything is working properly.
