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A terrific side effect of installing a computer network in your home is the ability to share a printer. Households without networks face some difficulties when it comes to printing. Network-deficient households have to rely on some less-than-perfect solutions.

If you want all the computers on your network to be able to access a single printer, you have to set up the Windows printer-sharing feature. Then you have to set up the printer for sharing. You perform these tasks at the computer to which the printer is connected.

The most difficult part of setting up network printing is deciding which computer gets the printer. Here are some common guidelines you can follow:

• Location. If you have room for a table at one computer location (and storage space for paper), that’s the computer to choose.
• Usage patterns. If one computer on the network is used far more often than any other computer, that’s the computer to select.

Some households have more than one printer. You may have a black-and-white printer as well as a color printer. When you enable printer sharing, each user can choose a printer every time he or she wants to print.

You can attach two printers to one computer if that’s more convenient, as long as the computer has sufficient ports. If one printer uses the printer port, and the other printer connects to the USB port, just plug them in. If both printers use printer ports, you can add a second printer port to the computer (it’s expensive). If both printers use USB connections, you probably have a second (or third or fourth) USB port. If you don’t have any empty USB ports, you can buy a USB hub (which adds ports).