How to Ping a Printer for a Mac

You can send ping commands to any printer on your local network.

The Mac OS X operating system supports both local printers connected with a USB cable and network printers connected to your local network with an Ethernet cable. While setting up a network printer with your Mac, you will want to test the device's network connection. The best way to do this is to send a "ping" command, which sends a small packet of data to the device's IP address and informs you if the printer is online and connected.

Things You'll Need

• Mac running OS X 10.5 or later
• Network printer

Instructions

1. Click the "Finder" icon in the Dock at the bottom of the window.

2. Highlight "Applications" from the "Places" list on the left side of the "Finder" window.

3. Open the "Utilities" folder and then double-click the "Terminal" icon. An empty command prompt window will appear.

4. Type "ping" followed by a space and then the IP address of your network printer. For example, if your printer's IP address is 10.1.1.7, you would type "ping 10.1.1.7" into the command prompt.

5. Hit "Return" on your keyboard to run the command.

6. Wait for the ping results to start loading in the window and then hold down the "Control" and "C" keys to halt the "ping" command. If the results say the device responded to the data bytes, it means your network printer is online and connected.

References

• Macworld: Find local network devices using ping