Day 26. Printer Installation
CompTIA A+ 220-901 Exam Topics
Objective 1.12: Install and configure common peripheral devices.
Objective 1.13: Install SOHO multifunction device/printers and configure appropriate settings.
Key Topics
Today we will be focusing on installing printers in both a local and networked setting. This includes configuring appropriate settings as well as touching on topics such as wireless, cloud, and remote printing. We also will cover installing small office/home office (SOHO) multifunction devices and printers.
Selecting a Printer
Consulting users to determine their needs is the first step to take when selecting a printer. Ensure that the printer meets the needs of the users in terms of speed, amount of printing needed, consumables, and options. For a networked printer, make sure it has the correct network adapter installed. Look for the letter N in the name of the model number. It usually indicates a printer with a built-in network adapter. For a local printer, make certain that the printer drivers are compatible with the operating systems (OSes) being used.
Installing Printers
Instructions for installing a printer vary based on the connection being used and the options included. It is important to read the instructions that come with the printer and follow them exactly.
When installing a printer directly to the computer, the only connections to deal with are one for power and the connection to the PC. The connection to the PC can be through a serial, parallel, FireWire, SCSI, or USB port. Devices that connect through a USB connection are considered hot-swappable and may require the driver to be installed before attaching the printer. The most commonly used connection when going directly from the computer to a printer is USB.
Connect the printer to the correct port on the computer, and then plug the power cable into a wall outlet. For most printers, it is best to also use a surge protector. Do not use an uninterruptible power source (UPS) for a laser printer due to the high voltage the printer requires.
Installing Multifunction Printers for SOHO
Multifunction printers usually are used in SOHO environments. They typically connect using a USB port or wirelessly. It is best to update the device driver before connecting the printer to avoid outdated driver issues.
When installing a multifunction device, the driver often comes with additional programs that support faxing, copying, and scanning capabilities. You might need to remove or configure them depending on which portions of the device you intend to use and which programs make sense.
Faxing
The faxing part of the printer will need to connect to a phone line. Features can include any of the following:
Answering machine
Color printout
Receive and send capabilities
Sent/Received forwarding to email capability
TCP/IP methods for network and Internet faxing
Copying
Copying requires that the printer have an automatic document feeder. If copying will be a heavily used function, consider a separate copy machine. The copying part of the printer can include some or all of the following capabilities:
Finishing, such as duplex, stapling, hole punching, and folding
Booklet pagination
Scaling and resolution
Page numbering
Scanning
Multifunction printers usually provide only basic scanning capabilities. The scanning part of the printer includes the following features:
Retrieval from storage
Automatic document feeder
Duplexing
Multiple formats, including PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and so on
Security
Printer Drivers
Most printers are plug-and-play (PnP) devices, so when connecting, the OS will install what it needs automatically. If not, insert the disc that came with the device and install the driver and utilities. You also can go to the website of the manufacturer to get the latest drivers.
If the correct driver is not installed, the printout will appear as strange characters or garbage print. To determine the correct driver, note the printer manufacturer and the model of the device. It also is important that the driver match the OS version and the edition (32-bit versus 64-bit).
Drivers control many of the printer functions, such as how to handle specific media types, paper size, quality, the correct tray, how many copies, and so on. Some of the functions are controlled by the software using the printer as well as the driver. Page setup can be one of those functions. It can change from portrait to landscape, normal-size page layout versus reduced size or enlarged size, borderless versus borders, fitting to the size of the page, and scaling.
Configuring the Printer
Depending on the printer, configuration options can be found on the device itself, included with the driver, or accessed through a web browser on a networked device. When working with the print driver, right-click the printer and select the Properties option. Selections can include managing print jobs, configuring the print spooler, managing permissions, as well as other options more specific to the device itself.
The first printer installed will become the default printer. This can be changed later when more printers are added. Many applications automatically select the default printer.
Configuration Settings
Typical configuration settings include some or all of the following:
Duplexing—Requires a duplexing unit to be installed; prints on both sides of a paper.
Collate—Putting pages in order and then in sequence (for example, Print Job 1 – 123, Print Job 2 – 123, Print Job 3 – 123).
Orientation—Based on viewing a page vertically (called portrait) versus horizontally (called landscape).
Drawers/Trays—Some units can have additional paper trays installed.
Finishing—One or two sided (duplex) stapling, collating, banner printing, and spooling settings.
Quality—Used to change how much ink is dispersed depending on the importance of the document. It’s measured in dots per inch (DPI); 600 DPI or higher is considered letter quality.
Printer Priority—Can be set from 1 to 99; it is possible to install two software printers that print to the same physical printer. This is one scenario in which priority might be useful; two or more physical printers could be combined to create a printer pool where print priority might be an issue.
Printing Preferences—Includes page setup, finishing, paper source, and quality.
Print Spooling
Print spooling is the process of sending the print job to a file one page at a time until the job is finished. This can help alleviate low memory problems on the printer. It also enables the user to continue working while the print job is run in a background process.
Several options are available when working with the print spoolers. The first option is to start the print job immediately. This setting provides one page at a time to be sent to the spooler. The second option is to start printing after the last page is spooled. The entire document is sent to the hard drive and then sent to the printer. Another option is to print directly to the printer and bypass the print spooler altogether. Be sure to have a lot of memory in the printer before choosing this option.
In Windows, the print spooler is controlled by a service. It is the service’s responsibility to print requests and send them to the printer. If the print server fails, the service can be stopped, started, or restarted using the following methods:
Computer Management—Open the Computer Management window and expand Services and Applications; then select Services and scroll until you find the Print Spooler. Right-click the service and select Start, Stop, or Restart.
Task Manager—Open Task Manager (right-click the taskbar and select it or press Ctrl+Shift+Esc). Then go to the Services tab and scroll until you find the Print Spooler.
At the command prompt—Type in net start spooler or net stop spooler.
Calibration
Monitors or computer displays create color images using pixels that contain three colors: red, green, and blue. Printers use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Trying to get the two to match requires a process called calibration. Color and ink jet printers usually provide some type of calibration utility used to calibrate the printer to match the monitor. It can also be performed on the device itself. Calibrating actually aligns the cartridge nozzles to the paper and each other. Without it, the print quality degrades over time. Look for fuzzy lines or colored areas that don’t look right.
Testing the Printer
After installing the printer driver, print a test page in Windows to determine whether the installation was successful. The Print Test Page box is usually found on the General tab of the Printer Properties windows. You can find this by going into Devices and Printers in Windows 7 and in 8, by right-clicking the printer, and selecting Printer properties. Some printers offer an option on the print device itself to not only print a test page, but also print the configuration information.
Local Connections
If connecting to a port directly on the computer, the port will be one of the following:
USB—Requires a USB cable; printers use the Type B port and the computer a Type A
IEEE 1394—Requires a FireWire cable.
Serial—9- or 24-pin male/female serial cable.
Infrared (IR)—Must be within 5 meters (16 feet).
Wireless—802.11 requires a wireless access point.
Bluetooth—Uses Class 2 cable; can be up to 10 meters (33 feet).
Network Printer Installation
Network printers can reduce the cost of doing business by allowing multiple users to access a single device. Usually the printer will have a built-in Ethernet connection. Any locally connected printer can be turned into a networked printer by sharing it, or by creating a new TCP/IP port to connect. Wireless and Ethernet are the most commonly used network connections for printers. Each should have a specific logical IP address.
When installing a network printer, the Add Printer Wizard scans for available printers on the network. When the printer is selected, Windows automatically searches for drivers. If the printer is not found, Windows provides a method of browsing using the printer name or IP address in order to configure the printer manually.
Print Servers
A print server is responsible for controlling multiple printers, including the queues, spooling, sharing, pooling, and permissions. A Windows client can be configured as a print server, especially if it is sharing multiple devices. A print server also can be a device called an external print server that plugs into the network, and it can be a service on a server, dedicated to managing all network printing.
Figure 26-1 shows how a typical print server might be set up.
Configuring a Network Printer in Windows
A Microsoft Windows shared printer is also known as a print server. A shared printer is similar to sharing a folder on a Windows machine. Be aware that Windows does not consider a printer as an actual device, but as a program that can provide services for more than one physical printer. It also considers both the drivers and the spooler as part of the printer.
Browsing and connecting to a printer on both workgroups and domains can be accomplished using the printer’s IP address or its name as a URL or by using its universal naming convention (UNC). A UNC name is assigned to a printer to provide users a method to access it. The UNC name is used in Windows OSes to identify both the computer and printer. It is important to know the syntax of the name:
Example: \Win7AdminInkJet
\Win7 refers to the name of the computer controlling the printer.
AdminInkJet refers to the name of the printer.
Sharing a printer using Microsoft’s OSes is done through the Devices and Printers applet. Support for other versions of OSes that use this printer can be provided by using the Additional Drivers button on the Sharing tab. This enables users to automatically download the correct driver when connecting. When an update to the driver is available, it only needs to be installed on the print server.
Authentication/Authorization
Network printers usually come with little or no default security. Most printers will allow full access unless specific steps are taken to control it—both physically and through the network. Setting rights for printer authorization and authentication occurs within the domain or workgroup level, not the printer level.
The Devices and Printers applet and Print Management console comprise the methods for managing printers in Microsoft OSes for both local and network printers. Either can be used to set printing authorization and permissions.
Share permissions can be used to secure locally shared printers. Share permissions affect only the printer being shared. Permission can be assigned to each person who uses the printer or to a group of users.
Windows provides four types of printer permissions:
Print—Each user can print, cancel, pause, or restart documents.
Manage documents—Manage all jobs for a printer waiting in the queue.
Manage printers—Rename, delete, share, and choose preferences for the printer; choose printer permissions for other users and manage all jobs for the printers (administrator group manage printers by default).
Special permissions—Used only by administrators to change the printer owner.
Printer Pooling
A printer pool uses two or more identical physical printers with a single logical printer showing on your computer. Printer pools have the following characteristics:
All printers in the pool are identical.
All printers must share the same print driver.
Printer ports can be mixed.
All printers are in one location, which makes it impossible to predict which will print.
The advantage of printer pooling is that one broken printer or one print error will not affect the print jobs coming in behind it. It will be redirected to another printer. It also allows more printers to share the print load, which is especially important for large print jobs that can tie up a printer. Figure 26-2 shows how to set printer pooling under the Ports section of a printer.
Network Connections
A shared printer can use PC ports. A network printer connection includes the most common network ports as well as the following:
Network connection—RJ-45 connector with unshielded twisted pair (UTP) is the most common.
Wireless—Connect using Wi-Fi - 802.11 (a, b, g, n, ac) standards or Bluetooth.
Others—Includes Apple AirPrint, Epson iPrint, and HPePrint.
Wireless Printing
The 802.11 standard is the most common wireless standard and usually requires connecting to a wireless access point or a wireless network interface card (NIC). Bluetooth requires a phone, laptop, or tablet with Bluetooth installed. A less standard option includes infrared, which has the shortest range.
Wireless networks usually have two ways of communicating with clients. The first is an ad hoc network in which computers communicate directly with each other through wireless NICs. A computer that comes within range of the network can automatically connect with the correct authentication. This method is very inexpensive and fast (twice as fast as infrastructure mode).
Infrastructure mode includes the use of an access point, which usually connects to a wired network. That means all clients must share the connection to the wired network if any of the devices reside there. To have roaming computers to which you can connect in an infrastructure mode setup, multiple access points need to be configured. Because an access point also can be a router with a firewall, Internet access with some security is likely.
Cloud Printing/Remote Printing
Cloud computing provides Internet access to remote printers. The most common cloud printing available is Google’s Cloud Print services. It supports multiple operating systems, and a printer that can use the Google Cloud Print Connector.
Cloud-ready printers connect directly to the Internet and do not require a computer or server for configuration. Once connected, print jobs can be sent from any remote device with the proper authentication. To set up a printer on Google, select chrome://devices on a new tab. For Android devices, go to System and select Printing > Cloud Print; then add the printer.
Apple Printing
Apple uses a program called Bonjour to discover devices such as printers as well as other computers, allowing for zero-configuration on a network. A Bonjour name can have upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. All names have the .local name extension automatically appended to the Bonjour name.
AirPrint is Apple’s way to wirelessly connect and print documents from a Mac, an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod without installing any additional software. It also provides connectivity through USB or an Ethernet port.
Secure Printing
When copiers, printers, or multifunction machines are repaired or disposed of, one of the considerations must be the possibility that data still resides on the machine. This is especially true of machines that provide any type of storage before printing. Check the manufacturer for information on whether the storage is used for processing or storage.
Another aspect of security in printing is requiring authentication for users to access the device. Some printers provide authentication services that can be accessed through the printer itself; others use network applications that integrate with the printing services. Additionally, some software packages track printing usage based on the authentication of the user.
Activity 26-1: Match the Printing Process to Description
Refer to the Digital Study Guide to complete this activity.
Activity 26-2: Match the Printing Configuration Settings to Its Description
Refer to the Digital Study Guide to complete this activity.
Study Resources
For today’s exam topics, refer to the following resources for more study.
