I succumbed and bought a wireless printer for my home office. Theoretically I can now print from any computer or device on my wifi network. Nice. Now, how can I easily add it to my Win10 PC?
Congratulations on joining the exciting world of wireless printing! Turns out that it’s been a long time since you needed to have a wire connecting your printer to the computer from which you want to print. And that’s not to mention all the smart devices like your phone or your tablet where you might also want to be able to generate printouts. Not only that, but Windows has come a long, long way since the early days of setting up printer by hand and searching lists for the right driver. In fact, for most printers, it’s ridiculously easy and the operating system does the vast majority of the work.
The only warning I will add is that if your printer came with a disk or even a note that indicated there was a special driver the manufacturer wanted you to install, go ahead and do that first. And by first, I mean before you try to connect the printer or before you try to add it to your list of printers on your PC. In some cases, you’ll need to actually have a wire connecting the printer to the computer for the driver update too. After it’s all set up then you can unplug and use it as a wireless printer.
For this example, I’ll be adding my big HP wireless printer and HP has done an excellent job with Microsoft of ensuring that all its printers have drivers that are included with the base Windows 10 operating system. It makes the whole thing, as you’ll see, really easy. Let’s get started!
Step zero is to double check that your PC is on the same wireless network as your wireless printer. If you end up on a different wifi network it’ll never work! This can be checked right from the Taskbar:
I do indeed want to be on the Aerie network. The next step is to just utilize Windows search. Look for “add printer”, logically enough:
It’s offering a shortcut to the Printers & scanners system setting, but look more closely at the list on the left. See that second option? “Add a printer or scanner”. That’s a better match, so click or tap on that.
Now you’ll jump straight to the correct spot in the system settings to add your new printer:
You’ll want to just click on the box at the top: “Add a printer or scanner“. It’s a good idea to also check the box near the bottom “Let Windows manage my default printer” for most people.
It’ll immediately start scanning the network for available printers or scanners:
There’s my printer! It’s the HP PageWide Pro 577 MFP and as you can see, it’s listed as a printer, ink-jet printer, scanner and fax. MFP = multi-function printer, and Windows knows just what it’s capable of, which is darn handy. If your printer isn’t showing up, double check it’s powered up and successfully connected to your wifi network. Then try the “The printer that I want isn’t listed” link for some debugging help.
To proceed, click on the new printer in the list. An “Add device” button will appear:
Obviously, click or tap on “Add device” and it’ll actually install the correct printer driver or drivers…
This might seem to stall out for a few seconds or longer, but have patience. Eventually you’ll get the confirmation that the new printer is “Ready”:
And a few seconds later a notification will drift on screen from the lower right:
Yes, it’s a pretty big printer!
Anyway, that’s it. You’re done. Now if you go into a program like, say, Microsoft Edge, and request a printout of a Web page, you’ll see that it shows up as an available printer:
And that’s all that’s involved in adding a wireless printer to a modern Windows 10 computer. Want to make it your default printer? That’s easy too. Check out this handy help page from Microsoft: Set a Default Printer in Windows 10.
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about Microsoft Windows since Windows 3 was around. While you’re here, please do check out my extensive Windows help area for lots more useful tutorials and guides!
I have an HP 8610 and it periodically goes offline for some unknown reason. I have tried all HP’s recommendations to no avail. I frequently must go to another room where the printer is located and restart the printer to put it on the network. Any suggestions on how to keep it on line??
My HP sporadically goes offline too. Not really sure what to suggest other than perhaps a plug device that once every “N” days powers down and powers up again, forcing a restart from the printer? Seems clumsy, but it would be a set-and-forget sort of solution.