How to Use Your Old Mac to Share a Printer in Your Home

So you've got this old iMac sitting in the corner that was such a faithful tool to everyone when you purchased it. But now wireless laptops (MacBooks) are the norm and no one uses this old Mac anymore. You looked on eBay and it's worth about $25. Not worth the effort to sell it. But you don't want to toss it in the landfill either. With all these wireless computers in the home, whenever anyone wants to print something they have to go down to the basement, dig out a cord and plug in to print. Well, no more. You can use that old iMac as a printer server for your home network!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• The old Mac
• a printer
• a USB cable

1. If you have a wireless router, most have at least one wired ethernet port available. You can hardwire the old Mac to that port or find a wireless option via a card or USB peripheral. This will make the old Mac available on the network.

2. Once on the network, plug the printer into the old Mac via the USB connection. This can be done with old OS 9 as well as OS X; but it is accomplished easier with OS X.

3. Go to and launch System Preferences.

4. Find your printer preferences and set up printer sharing for this printer by clicking on "Share This Printer."

5. In System Preferences/Network Preferences, turn on AppleTalk just in case. Some printers require that it be activated--but not all.

6. Go to another computer on the network and run a test print. You will have to select the printer in the print dialog box of the document.

Tips & Warnings

• The old Mac will have to remain on.
• Often times when it goes to sleep (to save energy) you may have to go down and wake the computer before you can print.