I have got an HP printer wired to my Mac desktop. I can also print wirelessly off my mac laptop and my ipad regardless of whether the desktop is on or off. In windows, there is a setting called printer sharing whereby the printer is wired to one computer and the computer shares the printer over the network with other non wire connected computers and suitable tablets. The Host computer needs to be left switched on for it to work though.
What you can do and how you need to set up to do it depends on the printer in my experience.
As Woofgang says, it'll depend on your printer.
We've got an Epson printer and it's connected to a PC via a USB connection and it's also connected wirelessly to 2 laptops and a tablet.
They are all connected independently, so there's no need to make sure a host is left switched on.
Hi, thank you both for your replies.
In a moment of clarity I've installed the required software supplied by Epson into my new laptop and presto magico, it works perfectly.
Apologies for not ageing too well and thank you again. :-)