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Can I connect a wired printer to my iMac wirelessly with USB bluetooth dongle?
- Thread starter NuMystic
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I think it would depend entirely on your printer. I used to have an Epson Photo Stylus RX595 printer that had a USB port, and was able to be Bluetooth enabled, but required a special USB Bluetooth dongle only available from Epson to work.
I tried it with a USB Bluetooth dongle I had lying around and it did not work as the printer did not have built in drivers to be able to use the dongle (nor had it any way of having those drivers installed).
I believe I've heard of printers that allow you to use generic Bluetooth dongles, but I cannot remember which those are.
What model printer do you have? Maybe there is documentation on the manufacturer's website or in some other forums online that would give you an answer.
I tried it with a USB Bluetooth dongle I had lying around and it did not work as the printer did not have built in drivers to be able to use the dongle (nor had it any way of having those drivers installed).
I believe I've heard of printers that allow you to use generic Bluetooth dongles, but I cannot remember which those are.
What model printer do you have? Maybe there is documentation on the manufacturer's website or in some other forums online that would give you an answer.
Look into wireless print servers (more likely WiFi than Bluetooth for your printer). From a quick Google search it seems like you could connect it to an Airport Base Station but I'll leave it up to you to confirm.
Great suggestion. Though keep in mind that the Apple Base Stations are only print servers (not multifunction print servers) and will only allow you to print to it. You won't be able to scan or copy to the computer.
If you want to be able to scan wirelessly I'd suggest getting a true Wi-Fi network printer/scanner. Adapting your current printer to be wireless may be too much hassle and possibly cost as much as a new printer would.
If you want to be able to scan wirelessly I'd suggest getting a true Wi-Fi network printer/scanner. Adapting your current printer to be wireless may be too much hassle and possibly cost as much as a new printer would.