At present, many of the printers that we can buy, except for the most basic, will allow us to connect them to our router by Ethernet network cable or Wi-Fi. This offers us a great benefit that is none other than any user connected to the router and within the same local network, will be able to print documents. It should also be noted that this is very practical, since it avoids us having to carry the documents on a pendrive to the computer to which the printer is connected to be able to print them. In order for it to function properly on the network, it must have an IP address assigned and, furthermore, it must be properly configured on the equipment to be used. In this tutorial we are going to see how to find out the IP address of a printer connected to the local network so that later you can add it and use it without having problems.
Why is it important to find out the IP of a printer?
The IP address can be defined as a set of numbers that logically identifies a network interface of a device, in this specific case, it would be a printer, which uses the TCP / IP protocol. One very important thing to keep in mind is that these networked printers are somewhat more complicated to configure than the basic ones. Basic printers by simply connecting a USB cable to the computer and installing the drivers through an installer that guides us, is usually more than enough to have everything ready, however, with network printers this is not so simple.
We must remember that we have two classes of IP addresses mainly:
- The public IP , we could consider it as the identifier of our network facing the Internet.
- Private IP , which is what identifies each of the devices that we have connected to our home network such as computers, smartphones, tablets and also printers.
Regarding a printer, what corresponds to it is that it is connected to the network and the router’s DHCP server has provided it with a private IP address, in this way, we can communicate with it through the home local network. One of the things that complicates the configuration of these printers connected by Wi-Fi or network cable is that it has to be configured individually on each computer. The second aspect that we must control is that it is possible that the configuration ends up being complicated, especially due to the difficulty in obtaining the printer’s IP.
Therefore, in order to successfully configure that network printer in any situation, it is necessary to know its IP address. However, although most printers have auto-discovery features that allow the operating system to find out the IP of a printer, these features do not always work as they should. Next, we will see what are the best ways to find out the IP of a printer.
All the ways to know the IP address of the printer
Currently there are different ways to get the IP address that a network printer is using, it is not necessary to have the printer near us to be able to see what IP address the DHCP server of our router has provided, and it is that we can know the IP address directly from our router or using software to discover which computers are connected to the local network.
Find out the IP of a printer using its display
Today, many of the network printers, especially those that are connected by Wi-Fi, come with a screen through which we can find out the IP of a printer. In this case, it should be noted that each manufacturer, in its different models, implements more or less complex user interfaces, and that there is no universal way to consult this information.
Usually we can find out the IP of a printer by accessing its settings in the configuration section. It also usually has close to the option that allows us to connect to a Wi-Fi network or a section that offers us a summary of the most important parameters of the network connection. This would be an example of what we could see on a printer screen:
In IP Address we obtain that result that we are looking for and that will facilitate the process of adding a network printer. In addition to finding out the IP of a printer, on that screen it usually offers us the possibility of assigning a private fixed IP so that it never changes. This can be a very interesting option to avoid IP conflict problems in the future.
The router to get the IP of your printer
Sometimes printers have such small screens or such complex menus that their configuration is complicated. Normally printers come with DHCP in automatic, so from the router we could assign one to it. Taking the printer above as an example, we see that we have its MAC and that our network range is 192.168.0.X. What we have to do is enter our router through the web through our browser, entering the username and password. Then what we would have to do is go to the static DHCP section of our router or try to identify our printer by MAC or IP in the list of connected devices and edit its configuration if it allows it.
In the case of the FRITZ! Box router that we are using to do this example, we would go to the section, Network and then click on the Add device button . Then a screen like this would come out and we configure it like this:
The only thing to do here is to put a name if you leave the option, put the MAC address of the printer and a fixed private IP within our network range.
The software to find out the IP of a printer
If we want to find out the IP of a printer in Windows 10 we are going to follow these steps:
- We go to the Windows Start Menu.
- We type Control Panel and then we press enter.
- There we look for Devices and Printers and click.
Here the first thing we are going to do is go to our printers section and identify ours.
Next we will press the printer with the right mouse button and click on Printer Properties .
Then we go to the Ports tab and there we can find out the IP of a printer.
In the image above specifically it would be 192.168.1.97. In this case, it should be noted that it is the one that is active because it has a checkbox enabled on the left. Just below we have three options:
- Add port : in case we want to put an IP to our printer for which we will choose one within the range of our local network and the Standard TCP / IP Port .
- Delete port : to eliminate the different options that it offers us. For example, if the printer fails and you have selected a WSD port, it is best to delete it and then go to add port and use TCP / IP as I indicated above.
- Configure port : in case you want to change something instead of deleting it, for example assign a different local private IP.
Find out the IP of a printer on Android
With the rise of Android and iOS devices, another option that we could try is to use an app to discover all the devices on the local home network. There are some very complete applications that allow us to scan our home network showing us all the connected devices with their corresponding IP and MAC address, in this way, we can easily and quickly find out the IP of our printer.
One of the best applications that we can use to carry out this task is Fing – Network scanner that you can download from the Play Store from here:
As you can see, we have different options to find out the IP address of our printer, once we know how to find it, we are going to learn how to use this IP that we have just discovered.
Put a fixed private IP to a printer
In the event that you want the printer to always have the same private IP address, you must do it directly from the router. All routers have a section on the DHCP server called “Static DHCP”. This function allows us to always assign the same private IP address to a specific MAC address, in this way, the printer will always have the same IP address and we will not have to configure all the computers again in case the IP address changes.
In the case of AVM FRITZ! Box routers, we simply have to go to the “Local Network / Network” section and click on “Edit”:
Once inside the edit section, we must click on the option « Assign this network device always the same IPv4 address «, in this way, this IP address will never change, and we can always locate the printer at the same address IP.
In other routers such as ASUS, the procedure is similar, all we will have to do is go to the “LAN / DHCP Server” section and select the hostname of the printer, the IP address and MAC address will automatically be filled in. , click on «Add» and we will have already added a new entry in the static DHCP so that the printer always has the same IP address.
This “Static DHCP” or “Static DHCP” functionality is available to all home routers, therefore, you can always use it.
Another option is to configure the fixed IP address through the printer, if it has a configuration screen or a configuration menu via the web where it provides you with this possibility. Generally, we do not have this option in low-mid-range printers, although in high-end printers we do have this possibility. If it has a screen and a menu, you must go to “TCP / IP properties settings”, and assign it an IP address outside the range of the DHCP server, the subnet mask and the default gateway. Optionally, it may also ask you to enter the DNS servers for it to update automatically.
How to use IP to add a printer in Windows
If we want to add a network printer to our Windows 10 computer, we will follow these steps:
- In the start menu we write Printers and Scanners .
- We are going to Add a printer or scanner .
Then we choose to add a printer by means of a TCP / IP address:
Here, what we would have left is to enter that local IP that we have found out, and follow the instructions that we are commenting on:
As you have seen, finding out the IP of a printer is quite simple, it is only necessary to follow a few simple steps, in our opinion, the easiest way to find out the IP address is by looking at the list of IP addresses provided by DHCP in the router, our second favorite option is to use a smartphone app. Once we have found the IP, we can configure it for use on Windows computers.
