For the first time, I'm interested in using samba to share files with another computer (a Windows computer) in my house, mainly because it's presently the only computer with a printer attached. Would I have to install samba on it too? It's installed here but I haven't even figured how to access samba yet--it's not in my KDE start menu.

Samba is not necessary on Windows. It has own native NetBIOS. If you installed samba and "kdenetwork-filesharing", then after right clicking on directory in Dolphine file manager and selecting properties, you get window dialog with "Share" on last tab. There you can enable sharing this directory with Windows client. If you want to access files from Windows, then you can do it by choosing "Network"/"Samba Shares" in Dolphin. Without Dolphin it is also possible, but some config files need to be altered manually.

You can also access shared printer (in "System Settings" you should have "Printers" icon, available with "system-config-printer-kde" package), so no files need to be transfered to Windows when you want print something.

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That worked; thank you. I can now access shared folders from the other computer. I notice that I can also make folders shared using Konqueror; it's slightly simpler there, because the "share" option is immediately available in the right-click menu.

It's not necessary, but why can't I make individual files shared?

This is harder than making files shared. For some reason, my KDE printer control isn't detecting the printer attached to the other computer. I don't know the printer's address (for TCP). If I try HTTP/IPP, a network scan gives me an address of ipp://127.0.0.1:631/ipp . But under the URL it says Would this be because my own system needs the printer driver installed to detect the printer? It's not installed.

It is protocol restriction. Probably someone can invent sharing of individual files, but I don't think it will be usable in real world. There are workaround for this, for example creating a symlinks to files in shared empty directory. You can also restrict privileges to individual files, for example clearing world rwx flags. By default samba access files with nobody:nogroup privileges.

I am not sure if ipp protocol works on Windows without additional software. But samba should. You should have that option "Windows printer via Samba" to choose. Make sure printer is online and is set as shared on Windows.

It should detect network printer without installed drivers. You choose which driver to use after detecting.

Hmm...I thought the printer might not be set for sharing, but it is. There's some other issue.