How to Hook Up a Printer to an ASUS Netbook
By B. Steele
Asus offers a line of affordable, ultra-portable netbooks that allow busy professionals to stay productive no matter where they are. Some Asus offerings can even fit in a purse. Although they're not high-performance powerhouses, Asus netbooks are fully functional computers and can be paired with any USB printer. Since many Asus netbook models do not come with a CD/DVD drive to accommodate your printer’s driver installation disc, you may need to download an appropriate driver for your printer from the internet first.
Log into the netbook using an administrator account.
Plug the printer into any available USB port and turn it on. Windows will attempt to locate an appropriate driver from its own store. If it does, you’ll receive confirmation that the install was successful, and you may skip the rest of the steps.
Open a Web browser and navigate to your printer manufacturer’s website.
Search for and download an appropriate driver for your printer model and operating system (in most cases, your system will have a 64-bit installation of Windows, but if in doubt, right-click on “Computer” and select “Properties).
Double-click on the downloaded file and follow the onscreen instructions. The installation program may install the driver for you, in which case you may skip the rest of the steps, or it may extract the driver files to a folder you specify. Remember this location.
Click the Start button, then “Devices and Printers.”
Click “Add a printer.”
Click the “Add a local printer” button.
Click the “Use an existing port” radio button and choose one of the USB printer ports.
Click “Next.”
Click the “Have Disk” button.
Browse to the location where you saved the driver files.
Click one of the INF files and click “Open” (it doesn’t matter which one; Windows will search the entire folder for the appropriate driver).
Click “OK” and follow the remaining onscreen instructions to finish.
Tips
You can set a printer as your default by clicking the Start button, clicking “Devices and Printers,” right-clicking on the printer and selecting “Set as default printer.” Whenever you click a “quick print” button in a program, the print job will go to this printer.
References
Writer Bio
A writer and proofreader since 2006, B. Steele also works as an IT Help Desk analyst, specializing in consumer and business user tech support. She earned a B.A. in English and journalism from Roger Williams University. Steele also holds certifications as a Microsoft-certified desktop support technician, Microsoft-certified IT professional, Windows 7 enterprise support technician and CompTIA A+ IT technician.