Printing Without WiFi: USB and Direct Connection Options

This is worth separating out before anything else, because two different things get called the same thing. A printer may need a network to reach your computer. It almost never needs the internet. Those are not the same, and the confusion is why a broadband outage sends people looking for a printer fault that is not there.

Printing is a conversation between two machines in the same building. The document goes from your computer to the printer and nowhere else. Nothing about it travels outside the house, which is why a printer connected by cable will happily print with the router unplugged and the broadband bill unpaid. What the internet is genuinely needed for is the small set of extras: downloading a driver the first time, firmware updates, cloud printing from outside the house, and services like HP's ink delivery. Ordinary printing is not on that list.

So when a printer says it cannot find a network, it means it has lost its path to the computer, not that it has lost the internet. The printer is not broken and it is not useless. There are three paths available, and a router is only one of them.

A USB cable is the simplest and the most reliable. It carries the job directly, needs nothing configured, and works during a power cut on the router. Its limits are obvious: one computer at a time, and the cable has to reach.

Wi-Fi Direct is the printer making its own small network for your phone or laptop to join. No router is involved. This is how you print from a phone with the broadband down. The cost is that while your phone is joined to the printer, it is not on your usual network, so it has no internet during those few minutes.

Ethernet is the one most people forget. If the printer has a network port, a cable from printer to router gives you everything a wireless connection would, without any of the wireless problems. It also works between a printer and a computer through a plain switch, with no router and no internet anywhere in sight.

The one real limit is age. A printer built before roughly 2013 may have neither Wi-Fi Direct nor an Ethernet port, in which case USB is the only route, and that is a limitation of the machine rather than something a setting can undo.

• No active router or internet connection available
• Printer WiFi Direct feature is turned off
• Computer or phone is not paired to the printer direct network
• Missing or damaged USB cable
• Incorrect printer driver installed for direct USB or wireless connection
• Printer wireless radio is disabled in settings

1. 1Check if you have a compatible USB printer cable
2. 2Verify if your printer model supports WiFi Direct
3. 3Check the printer control panel for a wireless direct status light

1. 1

   Connect using a USB cable

   Plug a USB printer cable directly from the printer to your computer. The computer should automatically detect the printer and install the necessary drivers.

   Ensure the cable is firmly connected but do not force the port.

2. 2

   Enable WiFi Direct on the printer

   Go to the settings menu on the printer control panel. Find the network or wireless settings and turn on WiFi Direct.

   Enabling wireless direct may temporarily disconnect any existing infrastructure network.

3. 3

   View WiFi Direct credentials

   Print a network configuration page from the printer or check the screen to find the direct network name and password.

4. 4

   Connect your device to the printer network

   Open the WiFi settings on your computer or phone. Select the printer direct network name from the list and enter the password.

5. 5

   Print your document

   Open the document you want to print, select the connected printer, and send the job. Ensure you select the correct printer instance if multiple are listed.

6. 6

   Point the queue at USB, or Windows will keep using the old port

   This is the step people miss, and it is why a printer plugged in by cable still reports itself offline. Windows keeps the old network port on the existing queue, so jobs go to an address nothing is listening at. Open Devices and Printers, right-click the printer, choose Printer properties, then the Ports tab, and tick the USB port instead of the TCP/IP one. If no USB port is listed, unplug the cable, plug it back in with the printer switched on, and give Windows a moment to create it.

7. 7

   On a Mac, add the printer again over USB

   macOS does not switch an existing queue from network to cable. Connect the USB cable with the printer on, then open System Settings, Printers and Scanners, and press the plus button. The printer appears in the list a second time with USB against its name, and that is the one to add and to select when printing. Keeping both entries is fine; they are two paths to the same machine.

8. 8

   Use Ethernet if the printer has a network port

   A cable from the printer to any spare port on the router gives a steadier connection than wireless ever does, and none of the signal problems. It also works with no router at all: a printer and a computer joined through a plain network switch will find each other, with no internet involved. Look for a square port on the back, wider than the USB one. Plugging in usually needs nothing configured, and the printer takes an address by itself.

9. 9

   Printing from an Android phone with no router

   Switch on Wi-Fi Direct at the printer, then join that network from the phone's Wi-Fi settings using the password the printer shows. Android will warn that the network has no internet and ask whether to stay connected; say yes, or it will drop back to mobile data and lose the printer. Then print through the manufacturer's app, or through Android's own print option if the Mopria Print Service is installed, which most phones have.

10. 10

    Printing from an iPhone with no router

    AirPrint normally expects both devices on the same network, and Wi-Fi Direct satisfies that: the printer's own network counts. Switch on Wi-Fi Direct at the printer, join it from the iPhone under Settings and Wi-Fi, then share or print as usual and the printer appears. Not every model allows AirPrint over its direct network, so if the printer does not show up, the manufacturer's own app is the fallback and works on models that AirPrint will not.

11. 11

    Get the driver before you disconnect, not after

    The single thing that genuinely needs the internet is the first driver installation. If you are moving a printer somewhere without broadband, download the full driver package from the manufacturer while you still have a connection and keep the installer file. Windows can often manage a basic driver on its own over USB, but the basic one usually loses scanning, duplex and the utilities, which is a poor trade for a file you could have saved beforehand.

The name of the feature changes between brands, which makes it hard to find in a menu when you are looking for the words you read online. HP and Epson call it Wi-Fi Direct. Canon calls it Wireless Direct. Brother calls it Wireless Direct too. Whatever it is called, it usually sits under a wireless, network or setup heading on the printer's own panel, and the printer will tell you the network name and password once it is switched on.

A note on what you give up while printing this way, so nothing comes as a surprise. Scanning to a shared folder on the network stops working, because there is no network to scan to. Printing from outside the house stops, for the same reason. And on a phone joined to the printer's own network, apps that need the internet will pause until you switch back. None of it is permanent and none of it needs undoing later; rejoining your usual network restores everything.

If you are setting a printer up permanently without a router, it is worth doing the driver download first, on a machine that does have internet, and keeping the installer. That is the one part of the process that genuinely needs a connection, and discovering it halfway through with no way to get online is the usual reason this goes wrong.