Many users have had a problem with older printers after switching to Snow Leopard, and some of those older printers will never work in OS X 10.6. Whatever your opinion of that, it’s a fact.
HP printers and multi-function printer/scanner owners have been particularly noisy, as HP left it to Apple to include printer drivers for their units, not bothering to distribute new versions of the software that allows scanning and other functions from HP’s own applications.
The workaround is that scanning for many of these units can be done in Preview, Image Capture and in the Print and Fax preference pane. These work, but personally I prefer to use Vuescan, from Hamrick Software. I already owned it, and you may not want to pay $40 for functionality that was included in the software that came with your AIO and worked when you bought it.
HP provided Mac OS X: Setting Up and Using the Product in Mac OS X 10.6 to help us understand printing with HP printers and multifunctions is pretty complete, and lists compatible models.
How to Scan in Mac OS X 10.6 Without Using HP Software describes how to scan using the three methods mentioned above.
HP Products with Print Drivers Included in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard lists the drivers included with Snow Leopard, and unfortunately, if your printer is not on the list, you are out of luck.
Apple has a page with all printer and scanner models supported by built-in drivers as well.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
