Printing (SoE Only) - Adding Printer by Hostname
Windows
Note: Administrator access is required to finish installing a printers on Windows desktop computers. Please let MERIT know as soon as possible if you plan on installing a printer on a Windows desktop by emailing support@education.wisc.edu or calling (608) 265-4773 so that we can send someone out to assist. If you're using a Windows Laptop or a Mac, you can disregard this.
1. Open up 'Printers & Scanners'. To do this, click the Windows button on the toolbar and begin typing 'Printers & Scanners' until the option appears. See picture below.
2. Choose 'Add Device'
3. The list of printers will now begin to populate
4. Don't choose any of the options here, instead you should scroll down the list until you find The Printer I want isn't listed' (It might be somewhere in the middle of the list, depending on how many printers were previously installed), and click on the link to 'Add a new device manually'.
5. The 'Add Printer' window will now open, choose 'Add a printer using a TCP/IP address or hostname'
6. Set the Device type to 'Autodetect', then in the 'Hostname of IP address' box, enter 'hostname.ad.education.wisc.edu' as shown below. To find the hostname, look at the 'Finding Hostname' section below. Finally, we would recommend unchecking the box to 'Quesry the printer and automatically select the driver to use'.
7. Next, depending on whether you left the checkbox in the previous step checked, your computer will either automatically find a printer driver, or you will need to choose one.
If you just want to add a printer as quickly as possible, you can just select the 'Microsoft PCL6 Class Driver' under the Microsoft section. This is a fairly universal driver that will work in the majority of situations, but you may end up lacking specific features depending on the printer, e.g. Stapling, double-sided printing.
A slightly better but still quick option would be to look for a generic driver from the manufacturer of your printer. So for example if you're adding an HP printer, you can look for the HP Universal PCL6 driver (There may be multiple versions listed, if so, just pick the most up-to-date one)
There is also a chance your specific printer's driver will already be in the list, in which case, feel free to use that.
Finally, if you want to ensure you're getting all of your printer's features, but you're not able to find the exact model already listed, you'll need to download the printer drivers directly from the manufacturer. Depending on which brand of printer you have, you will need to go to one of these websites and search for your printer's specific model:
HP Printers (https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/printers)
Canon Printers (https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/drivers-downloads)
Ricoh Printers (https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/support-and-download)
Sharp Printers (http://www.sharp-world.com/restricted/products/copier/downloads/select_us_driver.html)
Once you've obtained the driver, there are a few ways that driver downloads work, so we can't go over them all here, but the most common type of driver you could encounter will require the following to install it:
- Double-click on the downloaded file.
- A window will appear asking where you want to save the file. Feel free to choose any location you like, but make sure you copy the exact file path somewhere you can remember.
- Back in the printer install dialog, click "Have Disk"
- A dialog will pop up prompting you for the location of the driver, this is where you'll use the file path you saved the driver to earlier so that the Windows printer installer knows where the driver is. Once you've input the location of the driver into the text box, click "Ok".
8. Once you have the driver situated, you will then get the option to set a name for the printer. This name will determine how the printer shows on your computer, so be sure to set it to something that you'll recognize. After that, you may see a page appear asking if you want to share the printer, if this appears, choose 'Do not share this printer'.
8. Congratulations! At this point your printer should have been added successfully. We strongly recommend taking this opportunity to print a test page right away to ensure the printer was added correctly.
If you run into any problems here, there are a few options:
- If others are also having problems with the printer, try turning it off and back on again.
- If you're the only one having problems printing, you can try removing this printer from your computer via 'Printers & Scanners' and try the installation process again with a different driver. For example, if you used a specific driver, you could try a more generic driver to rule out problems with the printer/computer.
- You can always call our help desk at (608)265-4773 or email us at support@education.wisc.edu.
Mac
1. Click on the apple in the top left of your screen and choose 'System Settings'
2. Choose 'Printers & Scanners' and then select 'Add Printer, Scanner, or Fax...'.
3. The 'Add Printer' window will now open, click the 'IP' button near the top
4. Fill in the following fields:
- Address: hostname.ad.education.wisc.edu See 'Finding Hostname' below for help finding your printer's hostname.
- Protocol: Line Printer Daemon - LPD
- Queue: You can leave this blank
- Name: This can be whatever name you want the printer to show up as on your computer.
- Location: You can leave this blank
- Use: If you just want to install the printer as quickly as possible with basic printing capabilities, you can leave this as Generic PostScript Printer. If there are any specific features of the printer that you'd like to use (Such as stapling), you'll want to install more specific drivers, see below for instructions on how to do that, otherwise continue to step 5.
To begin, you can check and see if there are already drivers you can use, to do so select the 'Use' dropdown, choose 'Select Software', and see if your printer is already listed here.
If you're not able to find your printer in this list, you'll need to download the driver manually. To begin, find the printer driver from the manufacturer website and download it. Depending on which brand of printer you have, you will need to go to one of these websites and search for your printer's specific model:
HP Printers (Note: HP drivers now install as a large bundle featuring many drivers instead of allowing you to download individual drivers per-model, so you will need to install the entire bundle if there's no other option for your specific model) (https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/printers)
Canon Printers (https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/drivers-downloads)
Ricoh Printers (https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/support-and-download)
Sharp Printers (http://www.sharp-world.com/restricted/products/copier/downloads/select_us_driver.html)
Once you've downloaded the driver, run it. While every driver is different, typically the driver installer will walk you through the steps needed, and once installed you may be able to find the newly-installed driver/s via the 'Select Software' menu in the step above. If the driver is just a file and cannot be otherwise opened or used, you may need to install it manually by selecting the 'Use' dropdown, selecting 'Other', and then selecting the driver you just downloaded that way.
5. After you've put in the information above and chosen a driver, click 'Add'. Another page may come up asking if you want duplex printing. Check the box if you'd like to be able to print double-sided.
6. Congratulations! At this point your printer should have been added successfully. We strongly recommend taking this opportunity to print a test page right away to ensure the printer was added correctly. You can either try printing your own document, or to print a standard test page:
- Select your newly-added printer in the list
- Click 'Printer Queue'
- Choose 'Printer' on the top tool bar and 'Print Test Page' (Be sure you have the correct printer selected before selecting to print the test page, the Printer Queue does not select the printer you used to access it by default).
If you run into any problems here, there are a few options:
If others are also having problems with the printer, try turning it off and back on again.
If you're the only one having problems printing, you can try removing this printer from your computer via 'Printers & Scanners' and try the installation process again with a different driver. For example, if you used a specific driver, you could try a more generic driver to rule out problems with the printer/computer.
You can always call our help desk at (608)265-4773 or email us at support@education.wisc.edu.
Finding Hostname
On your printer there might be a label with the hostname on. It is usually on a yellow label and the name is commonly found in the form of 'department-model' (For example, MERIT-M401), but the format could be different.
If there is no label on your printer, look through the printer's settings for an option that says something along the lines of 'print configuration page' or 'print network configuration'. On the printed page(s) there should be a section labeled 'Hostname' with the printer's hostname listed beneath.
As there are many different models of printers in the School of Education, we're unable to provide directions on how to get the configuration page for every printer on here. For assistance finding the host name, please contact our help desk at support@education.wisc.edu or (608)265-4773.
If you run into any problems with the above directions, or if you have questions, please reach out to the MERIT Help Desk at support@education.wisc.edu or (608) 265-4773.