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Set Up a Printer on Windows 11.

Quick reference

Set Up a Printer

Learn how to set up a printer on Windows 11. 

When to use

We connect and set up a printer on Windows 11 whenever we want to have the option of printing documents. 

Instructions

Set up a Printer

Most printers connect to our PC via USB cable. Some are WiFi enabled. 

  • Plug the printer into a power source and turn it on. 
  • Ensure the printer has paper loaded in the tray. 
  • Check the printer for low ink warnings. 

In some cases, setup will happen automatically and we simply need to follow through the prompts in Windows 11 to connect the printer. If not, we need to configure it ourselves in Settings. 

Automatic Setup

  • Go to Settings. 
  • Click Bluetooth & devices.
  • Click Printers and scanners. 

If the setup has happened automatically, we will see our printer listed here ready for use. It's always good to send a test print to the printer to make sure it's working correctly and the ink levels are OK.

Setup a Printer Manually

If the automatic setup didn't work, we may need to install drivers for the printer. Drivers are software that allows the printer to communicate with our computer. When we buy a printer, we may receive a CD that contains the printer drivers or we may have information in the instruction manual on where to download the printer drivers from. 

Most of the time, we can jump on to the manufacturer's website and search for the drivers we need. 

Once the correct drivers have been installed, the printer should connect.

Hints & tips

  • It's important to make sure that printer drivers are kept up to date to avoid any potential problems. 
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  • 00:04 Most of us at some point are going to want to connect up a printer to our system.
  • 00:08 And it might be you connect your printer via some kind of cable, or
  • 00:12 more often than, not these days, we can connect our printer using Wi-Fi.
  • 00:17 So I'm going to take you through the process and show you how simple it is
  • 00:21 to connect a printer to Windows 11, so you could print documents,
  • 00:24 spreadsheet's presentations, whatever it is you need to print.
  • 00:28 Now in this example, I'm going to be using my printer,
  • 00:32 which is a Wi-Fi enabled printer.
  • 00:35 So this process will be very slightly different if you connect using a cable.
  • 00:38 Regardless of how we connect, there are a few steps we need to make sure we do prior
  • 00:43 to opening up settings and connecting up to the Wi-Fi.
  • 00:47 So the first thing we need to do, fairly obvious really, we need to
  • 00:51 plug the printer into a power source and make sure that that printer is turned on.
  • 00:56 If you're using a Wi-Fi enabled printer,
  • 00:59 make sure that you turn on the Wi-Fi or the WLAN button on the printer.
  • 01:04 This means that our Windows 11 system is going to be able to find our printer on
  • 01:09 the network.
  • 01:09 And then it's really a case of following the on-screen prompts on your printer,
  • 01:14 to connect up to your home Wi-Fi network.
  • 01:17 And I know for me, it's very similar to connecting to the Internet.
  • 01:21 Once I press the Wi-Fi button, it searches for available networks in the local area.
  • 01:27 And normally the one that it will pick up is the one that's currently active in
  • 01:31 your house.
  • 01:32 All you need to do is select it and
  • 01:33 then you'll be asked to enter in your Wi-Fi password.
  • 01:37 Type it into your printer,
  • 01:38 and your printer should very easily connect to your home Wi-Fi network.
  • 01:43 It's really important if you are using a Wi-Fi printer that your printer and
  • 01:48 your PC are on the same network.
  • 01:50 The final thing to do here is just check that your printer has paper and
  • 01:54 that we have sufficient levels of toner and ink.
  • 01:57 Once we're at that stage, we can then jump into Windows 11 and set up our printer.
  • 02:02 So let's take a look at that process now.
  • 02:05 Now we set up a printer through settings, but
  • 02:07 if you don't want to spend any time hunting around for this specific area,
  • 02:11 we can simply search for printers in Windows Search.
  • 02:15 So let's click on the search button, and in the search bar,
  • 02:18 I'm just going to type in PRINTER.
  • 02:23 Notice the first thing at the top of the search results is Printers and
  • 02:26 Scanners, and I can see that's going to take me to my system settings.
  • 02:30 So let's click on this option.
  • 02:32 Now here, if we take a look at the breadcrumb trail, you can see
  • 02:35 that Printers and scanners actually falls underneath Bluetooth and devices.
  • 02:40 And right at the top, the first thing we have here is Add a printer or scanner.
  • 02:45 So this is simply a case of clicking Add device.
  • 02:50 And if both your PC and your printer are on the same network,
  • 02:55 it should find it fairly quickly.
  • 02:58 And I can say yes, this is my printer.
  • 03:01 Let's click Add device, and it's now connecting it up.
  • 03:05 Now this can sometimes take a few seconds, so
  • 03:07 we'll just wait until we see connected underneath.
  • 03:11 Now if you see Installing, it's usually either installing the drivers for
  • 03:15 your printer or updating them.
  • 03:17 And once again, this can take a few seconds.
  • 03:20 And there we go.
  • 03:21 Now we have ready underneath, I know that my printer is set up.
  • 03:24 So now that I have my printer set up, I can see it listed just here,
  • 03:29 we always recommend printing a test print just to make sure everything is working.
  • 03:34 So, if we click on the printer, it's going to open up a secondary menu,
  • 03:38 we can open the print queue, but we can also print a test page.
  • 03:42 So we would definitely recommend that you do this prior to sending any actual
  • 03:47 documents to the printer.
  • 03:48 But that's it, really nice and simple.

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