How do I use a printer hooked up to an Airport Express unit?

I have an Airport Express device and would really like to use it to enable a wireless printer on my local network. I know it can do that, but I have no idea how to hook it all up. Can you advise? I have a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4.9 and an older Apple Airport Express.

Dave's Answer:

Your timing is excellent: I just recently set up one of these networks myself and found it rather tricky, truth be told. What I ended up doing was reseting the Airport Express three or four times (which was a pain! Fortunately, it's documented here) and fiddling with various settings until I got everything to work properly.

The first step you'll need to do is make sure that your printer and Airport Express are being plugged in reasonably close to your Ethernet network hub or router. While it should theoretically be possible to have the device just serve up your printer on its own wireless network, I found that the Airport Express was cranky about starting up on a power cycle without a live Ethernet plug. Then plug in your printer via the USB connection, then cycle power on your printer after you've plugged it into the Airport Express.

Hopefully your Airport Express will display the cheery green light meaning all is well, and have identified the type of printer you've hooked up. You can check that by connecting to the Express network (which might be called something like "Apple Network 0c0037" or similar) and launching Airport Admin Utility. Start that and it should immediately see your device:

Apple Airport Admin Utility: Select an Airport Device

Mine has the snazzy name "Base Station 0064c3", as you can see. I select it, enter the password (I strongly recommend you set an admin password so no-one else can monkey with your unit, btw!) and now I see this:

Apple Airport Admin Utility: Configure your Airport Device

Worth noting is that this is where I can change the administrative password (click on "Change password..."), change the broadcast name of the network (mine's called "hardcopy" since it's for the printer device) and add a password to the wireless network you're creating (click "Change Wireless Security...").

Make all the changes you desire, then click on "Update" and let the device restart with its new configuration options. Probably, you'll need to reselect it the first time if you've renamed the network, but that's easily accomplished. Once you're online, go back into the Airport Admin Utility and select the Airport Express again. This time, choose View --> Summary and see if your printer is recognized:

If your printer isn't recognized, check out the help material from Apple to remedy the problem, but most likely it'll be fine.

Almost done, believe it or not. Now you can quit the Airport Admin Utility because you want to launch a different program, Printer Setup Utility. Start it, click "Add+" to add a new printer, and select "Bonjour" if it isn't automatically selected. Your printer magically shows up:

Mac OS X: Printer Browser: Bonjour / Rendezvous

There's my printer, the Samsung ML-1740. I simply select it, click "Add", and it's now a new printer I can select when printing from any Mac application. Not too difficult once you know the steps!

Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 7646, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: airport troubleshooting, network printing, wifi, wireless printing
Previous: How do I price banner ads on my photography site?
Next: Question about non-compete clauses in book contracts

Subscribe!

Never miss another Q&A article! Click to subscribe:

Comments

For ease of explaination and use of layman terms, instructions should be as follows:

To connect your USB printer to the Airport Express, do the following:

If you have attempted to connect your printer before this, reset Airport Express by pressing reset button for 10 seconds until light rapidly flashes. Unplug your Airport Express and do the following:

1. Unplug Airport Express
2. Plug in, in this order: Ethernet cable, USB printer cable and stereo speaker cable (if needed).
3. Plug Airport Express into the outlet and while light is flashing amber, cycle power on your printer (power on).
4. Launch Airport Admin Utility and follow the rest of Dave's instructions.

This should work with no problems.

Posted by: Andi at November 3, 2007 9:55 PM

Dave,

I was curious what happens if you shut your printer down? Do you have to perform the whole setup process again? I normally shut mine down as I only use it 5X/month.

Regards,
Ben

Posted by: Ben at October 31, 2008 8:44 PM

I picked one up and installed it, and the airport express retains the printer even if it is turned off, so you don't have to reinstall the printers on your machines.

Posted by: Ben at November 8, 2008 9:33 PM

I have an HP Deskjet F340 printer and followded same procedurs...but the driver never appears in the dropdown menu for Print Using: Updated drivers from HP...and printer works fine when attached directly to Mac Laptop. Have "reset" i.e. deleted print que and tried fresh install but no luck when printer connect to Airport Express device. Any suggestions?
..mitch

Posted by: mitch at April 4, 2009 8:04 AM

heyy thanks for the lecture.. i haven't really noticed the airport admin utility until now. you are my favorite bookmark!!

Posted by: __oZZ__ at May 27, 2009 4:31 PM

Hi, so I am trying desperately to hook up my PC to the printer via the Airport Express and I just can't seem to make head nor tail of how to do it for a PC, it seems easy enough for the Mac, but when I try and get my PC to see the printer, it just won't.

But then again, I am a bit of a luddite and I'm probably doing something hopelessly wrong.

Cheers
Sean

Posted by: Sean at September 24, 2009 5:56 AM

Ignore all that ! I've worked it out !!!

Posted by: sean at September 24, 2009 7:26 AM

I am not using the AirPort Express as a base. I have TimeCapsule as my base, and I am able to set up the HP printer through the AirPort Express. I power on/off the printer, setup, print a test page, turn off everything but the TimeCapsule and AirPortExpress, wake up, start everything up, and the printer is not able to print.
OS X 10.6, brand new AirPort, and a HP 7310. I also notice, when I do a Software Update, every single time, HP is being updated successfully, and I doubt HP is changing the software every hour.
I am ready to park the 7310 and purchase a newer compatible printer. Any advice appreciated.

Posted by: Mike S at December 10, 2009 12:13 PM

For the last couple of years I have been using an Airport Express as a base station. It is connected to the Internet via a cable modem. What I would like to do is connect a printer, but I do not want it in the living room, where the base station and modem are. My question: Can I plug in a second Airport Express in the next room, get it to communicate with the base station AE, and connect a printer to it?

Most of the instructions I've found are for connecting the printer to the base station, but that isn't my issue. I have the second AE, but I'm too chicken to try hooking it up until I know exactly what to do. BTW, I'm normally not a completely helpless idiot. I just sound that way in this question. Thanks for any help you can give.

Posted by: Solitaire at December 22, 2009 8:23 PM

Solitaire, I haven't tried that exact configuration, but I know that the Airport Express unit can work as a 'repeater' helping extend the reach of an existing wireless network. In that configuration, I would imagine that it'll also make a printer hooked up to the secondary unit visible too. No guarantees, but I think that'll work. :-)

Posted by: Dave Taylor at December 22, 2009 8:45 PM

Thanks, Dave. Do I follow the same general instructions you give at the top of the page, or do I have to do something different? This is the part that scares me. I've managed to disable my network connection before by changing something, and fixing it has taken calls to both Apple and my ISP. I'm a little skittish.

Posted by: Solitaire at December 22, 2009 9:41 PM

Solitaire, I think this'll be a good starting point for you: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2044?viewlocale=en_US Since I don't have two AE's I can't really test it for ya! :-)

Posted by: Dave Taylor at December 22, 2009 10:05 PM

Recently upgraded to snow leopard and lost ability to print to HP photosmart 2610 printer through my airport extreme. I can print if I bypass airport and hook the printer directly to my computer through a USB port.

I tried to follow Dave's instructions but the network and airport configuration screens in snow leopard appear to have changed from previous OS versions. I'm lost. Can someone show me how to configure my printer in snow leopard.

Posted by: Eric at February 13, 2010 1:21 PM

Hi, i have got my laptop to print wirelessly via the airport express but i dont seem to be able to add clients. please can you help tell me the steps?
(the setting for me is that we share wifi with others in the rented office space, so i set up another network (airport express network for printing purposes) for just the 4 of us. so every time we print we need to change to airport express network.)

Posted by: onin at May 12, 2010 2:05 AM

Had almost given up, then I found your guide. Now it works. Thanks.

Posted by: Brian at June 28, 2010 4:17 AM

OK, HOW did you get your SAMSUNG ML-1740 to work with OS 10.6? I've been all over the net trying to find drivers for it. (Which Driver do you use? Where do you find it?)

Marlan

Posted by: Marlan Knittel at January 4, 2011 10:26 PM

Wow, Dave! Thank you so much for your help in setting up our printer via airport. Won't my husband be surprised when he gets home and sees that I did it myself!! Lol. You're awesome!

Posted by: shannon at March 6, 2011 7:42 AM

This is encouraging. I will try this tonight w/ my Airport Extreme, Epson R380 & 5 yr old HP Laptop.

Posted by: Isaac Images at March 31, 2011 3:23 PM

I have an airport extreme connected to my router and all my macs find it easily and print without problems (the printer is connected to the airport using the USB output). I have a PC connected to the airport via the ethernet cable and have installed the (brother laser) printer driver, switch on sharing and selected the USB virtual port.
Nothing. The PC simply will not print. I've tried a couple of other ports but less luck there.

Can you shed any light on this please Dave?

Posted by: John at January 2, 2012 4:53 AM

If you cannot see the driver in the drop down menu.

Install the printer locally (ie using Windows Update) as not all drivers are included. This worked for me on both my HP laser 3800n and HP inkjet F4000 something printer. Then with some luck bonjour will pick up the driver and you do not even have to find it.

Hope this helps :)

Posted by: Chip at January 28, 2012 7:00 AM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!