Printer sharing is a great way to economize on computing costs for your home, home office, or small business. By using one of several possible printer sharing techniques, you can allow multiple computers to share a single printer, and use the money you would have spent on another printer for something else, say a new iPod.

If you’re like many of us, you have a mixed network of PCs and Macs; this is especially likely to be true if you’re a new Mac user migrating from Windows.

You may already have a printer hooked up to one of your PCs. Rather than buy a new printer for your new Mac, you can use the one you already have.

What You Need

• A working network, either wired or wireless Ethernet.
   
• A printer that’s directly connected to a PC.
   
• A common workgroup name for the PCs and the Mac network.
   
• A few minutes of your time.