Add a Printer to a Windows Computer
This article discusses adding a printer to a District Windows computer.
Windows Printing in the District
For use with District Windows computers, network printers are published on the school's onsite server (e.g., MARCEL for Homer High, ASTRO for Tustumena, etc.). When adding a printer with the "add printer" function in the Settings app, the list of available network printers is thus filtered to include only the network printers "local" to that school or location. You can add a printer from a different location, but it takes an extra step, described below.
Adding a Printer to a Windows Computer
Step 1: Use the Windows Search bar to search for Printers & Scanners.
Step 2: Select Add a Printer or Scanner in the settings window. Note that the section below this, Printers & scanners, is a listing of all the printer and scanner devices that you have already added to your list.
Step 3: Scroll down to find the desired printer, from the presented list of printers local to the location you are in. Look for the shared printer queues among this list; the format you are looking for is
[location code] [room location] [printer model] on [location server name]
Examples: "06 Library 227 on MARCEL", "45 Room 116 M404 on ASTRO", "42 Work Room 650 on SEBASTIAN", etc.
Click the desired printer name then select Add Device.
NOTE: The presentation of the list of printers can vary from location to location, and sometimes the same printer can be listed more than once (e.g., not just by the desired "share name" that we give it, but also by its hostname, or even by its model name in some cases); be sure to scroll the list to look for your printer by its location code and room number.
If You Don't Find the Printer You Want
You can add a printer that is not in the presented, location-filtered list, such as a printer at a different location. After you click the Add a printer or scanner button (as above), and after the filtered list gets built and presented to you, you can scroll down to the bottom of the selectable list, and between the bottom of the selectable list and the next section of your already-added Printers & scanners, you should see a link called The printer that I want isn't listed.
Click that link, then choose the Find a printer in the directory option:
Clicking Next then brings up a robust finder dialog that is initially filtered to your current location, but which can be changed to list printers at another District location. For example, typing "seward high" in the Location input, and then clicking Find Now, brings up a list of printers at Seward High School:
The search can be made more general, too. Typing in not "seward high" but just "seward", returns entries for Seward Elementary, Middle, and High, plus the Seward Connections office:
Adding Printers For Student Users
Employees add whichever printers they wish to use, and then manage the already-added list of Printers & scanners however they wish. Student behavior is a little different. At each school, a certain subset of printers is administratively designated to be automatically available to all students at that school. (To modify this "student printers script" to change, add, or delete the desired list of automatically-available student printers, contact the Helpdesk.) Students should not have to add these printers manually, in order to use them on Windows machines; they will automatically show up in the students' list of "already-added" Printers & scanners.
Students can still use the above process to add other District printers not listed in the "student script" for their school, but those printer definitions will be removed at the student's next Windows login.