Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.4 supported printers

This page has direct links to all printer vendors Mac OS X information page, as well as solutions to changes in the Mac OS X operating system that aren't supported by the printer vendors.

Page last changed: Feb 6, 2008
This page is arranged into the following sections:

Changes

February 6: Added Okidata 10.5 drivers to vendor pages for the C3300 and C3400
January 2, 2008: Alps printer drivers added to Vendor page
December 22, 2007: Canon MX700 drivers sensitive to old HP drivers added to critical notes
December 10: Lexmark Support page info from Apple added under Vendor specific page.
December 6: HP support added for C8150, C8180, C8183, and C8150 under vendor specific drivers for Leopard (10.5)
December 4: Added link to Apple compatible printers for Mac OS X 10.5 under Critical Notes
October 14: Added USBTB to the Parallel printing solutions.
May 24: Added HP compatibility note with 10.4.9 under the Critical Notes section.
January 6, 2007: Added Apple Stylewriter section
August 13: Added Brother Critical note for Tiger
August 2: Added ESP Print Pro to Vendor page. Over 5300 crossplatform printer drivers
May 20: Added Epson 740 Print Jobs stop issue to Epson section in manufacturer.
May 18: Added note about Samsung printers in vendor section
May 5: Added second Apple Classic printing article
March 27: Added link to Apple's Classic printing knowledgebase article
January 23, 2005: Added serial printing guide to Mac OS X
September 21, 2004: Added unofficial listing of known compatible printers with Airport Express and Extreme in vendor section
September 17: Added HP All in one Classic printer help page in Vendor section
September 5: Added Thermal Printer drivers link from Peninsula Group in Vendor section
July 15: Added Raster supported printers by Mac OS X 10.3 to Raster Image Processor section
April 25: Added Airport printing troubleshooting page under Helpful Utilities.
April 15: Added Printfab and Proofmaster Adesso links under RIP utilities
March 14: Added link under vendor section to Apple's instructions for setting up printers under Mac OS X, added suggestion for using a second user to setup a printer under the Helpful Utilities section.
February 7: Added Printer Setup Repair for 10.3.x, and modified Print Center Repair to indicate it is for 10.2.x and lower in the Helpful Utilities section
. February 3: Added to Utilities section All in One Communications application resetter for HP printers.
January 27: Files to delete if nothing else works is added to helpful utilities section
January 26: Added next to Lexmark's link an important note about Panther (Mac OS X 10.3)
January 24: Updated links within pages above
January 20, 2004: Put RIP solutions on page.
November 9, 2003: Added Allosx's Panther Printing Fix
September 8: Added Minolta
July 24: Added Keyspan's Parallel printer adapter
May 3: Added Fusion systems
April 6: Added Turboprint
March 19: Added Ricoh printer info
March 2: Added HP RIP driver info
December 22, 2002: Added info on Mac OS X 10.2.3
December 12: Updated Canon's Printer page link to current one, added Print Center Repair link
December 11: Added Epson RIP and Colormatching drivers for Mac OS X, and HP AIO 10.2.2 workaround
November 23: Added Alps printer drivers
November 17: Added new HP printer support from Linuxprinting.org
November 14: Added new links Apple, Brother, and Samsung drivers, and appended those vendor links with Guten-print (formerly known as gimp-print) drivers.
September 2: Added vendor page, Apple's new printer guide.
August 25: Added Gimp Print info

Critical Notes

William Huisking discovered on Apple Discussions that his MX700 drivers would not work with old HP drivers installed in 10.4.11. He had to delete all remnants of HP folders from his various Library folders in System -> Library, Hard drive -> Library, and User -> Library. If you find you have a similar issue, I'd report this to Canon and let them know so they can find out what drivers conflict with the existing HP drivers.

Apple has released a listing of all the included printer drivers for Mac OS X 10.5 on knowledgebase article 306684

A system administrator named Sinjin Lindbeck contacted HP technical support and discovered that repairing permissions would fix this problem they described to me that exists with 10.4.9:
"If running OS 10.4.9 and your HP printers, scanners, etc start losing print jobs into the ether or fail intermittently, perform a repair disk permissions to eliminate the problem. I spent about 4 hours on my own and finally called HP. They said it was a problem with their drivers and 10.4.9. Just thought I'd share." Repair permissions is found in Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.

If you have a printer issue which was resolved please state the issue that was resolved, the printer model, the operating system version, and how it was resolved in the guestbook.
With the release of Panther (Mac OS X 10.3), many of these printer drivers may no longer work. Double check with the manufacturer to make sure the printer is still supported. Apple included many new printer drivers with Panther which may work better. Check if your printer vendor is listed on the installer of Panther, and make sure that any older versions of the printer drivers are removed before installing the Panther printer drivers.

Please Note: Print Center has a new name under Mac OS X 10.3. It is called Printer Setup Utility. It can also be activated under Mac OS X 10.3 through Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Print and Fax -> Printing -> Setup Printers. Instructions below relating to Print Center should work most of the time in Print Setup Utility
Note Guten print (formerly known as gimp-print) and linuxprinting drivers do not support double sided printing on all printers and may also have trouble printing directly from Adobe applications, though you can print using the preview application after making a preview of your print job.
At this time it is unknown if Turboprint drivers have any limitations over what is supported by the makers of these printers.

It was found that the Tiger (with Mac OS X 10.4) driver for the Brother HL-2070 works for HL-2040 printer whose drivers don't come with Tiger.

RIP (Raster Image Processor drivers)

Four known raster image processing utilities exist for Mac OS X:
Apple's listing of raster supporting printers lists some built-in support by Apple.
iProof Systems PowerRIP, which are used for some Epson printers. iProof's customer service was recently very poorly rated in the UK by a poster on Apple Discussions. Whether this is an isolated instance or not, it is unknown.
HPs RIP processor software for several of their printers
Fusion Systems also makes its own set of RIP utilities for Mac OS X
Print Fab - open source driver based RIP utility
Proofmaster Adesso

Helpful Utilities

Apple article 300849 helps explain how to print using the Classic environment, and so does http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh660.html
This Apple article discusses how to troubleshoot printing over a wireless connection with Apple's Airport technology.
This Applelinks article a user replied to the editor that they managed only to setup their printer by creating a second account and then trying to setup the printer. Not exactly a utility, but a tip which if you are having trouble adding a printer to the Print Center or Print Setup Utility, you may want to try. To setup a second user go to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Accounts, and click on the + button below the column of users. Then Login to the new user using the Logout in the Apple menu to connect to the other user.

Mac OS X 10.2 compatible USB to parallel printer adapter from keyspan.
Allosx's Panther Printing Fix.
Some issues with existing printers may be resolved with Print Center repair for 10.1.x and 10.2.x, Printer Setup Repair for 10.3.x.
Users with 10.2.2 or earlier versions of Mac OS X 10.2 may use these utilities and upgrades to fix issues with HP Printing:
Read this note about it and its workaround.
Among the improvements listed for Mac OS X 10.2.3 which may solve HP printing problems:
"Improves compatibility for the HP Communications application."
"Printing and Print Center Enhancements
* Improves ability of Print Center to automatically find and add USB printers.
* Enhances default printer selection process after network printers have automatically been added.
* Printers configured with a Rendezvous name are now selectable from a Print dialog window.
* Improves notifications when a job cannot be printed due to a stopped print queue."
You can download 10.2.3 update to 10.2, 10.2.1 or update to 10.2.2 and install to see if it makes a difference for you.
HP has also released a utility called aioscript.sit to reset the All in One driver Communications application in case it has a fit.

Files to delete

When all else fails one suggestion that appeared on Apple's discussion board is to delete the com.apple.print files in the following folders:
/Library/Preferences/ByHost
/Users/yourusernamehere/Library/Preferences
/Users/yourusernamehere/Library/Preferences/ByHost
If that is done, it may be necessary to repair permissions to achieve a stable system and possibly reinstall the printer drivers if they aren't working.
To repair permissions open: Hard Drive -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility -> First Aid -> select hard drive in Disk Utility window and click on Repair Permissions. Note, this option is not available in Mac OS X 10.1.4 or earlier. Mac OS X 10.1.5
does not have this option in Disk Utility, though does have a Repair Privileges utility which achieves the same goal.

Vendor pages

  • Alps printer drivers. Additional drivers may be more current at the Japanese driver site (translated from Japanese to English).
  • Apple's raster ink-jet printer support in 10.3
  • Apple knowledgebase document on PPD files for laser printers for 10.2
  • Apple knowledgebase with instructions on setting up printers in Mac OS X
  • Apple's most current guide to Mac OS X compatible printers, with vendor links
  • Apple Imagewriter drivers from Linuxprinting.org
  • The Apple Guide's search engine for compatible printers (older searchable guide from Apple's software/hardware compatibility database)
  • Brother, also see Linuxprinting.org drivers, Guten-print (formerly known as Gimp-print), and Turboprint
  • Canon, also see Guten-print (formerly known as Gimp-print) and Turboprint
  • ESP Print Pro - crossplatform software that adds over 5300 printer drivers.
  • Epson, alternate Australian site may have more up-to-date drivers for Epson, Epson RIP and colormatching drivers from iProof Systems, Guten-Print (formerly known as Gimp-print), and Turboprint.
    Apple has released an interesting article to fix Mac OS X 10.4: Print job stops when printing to an Epson SC 740 printer.
  • GCC
  • Hewlett Packard (HP), HP All in One printer help for Classic printing, Raster Image Processing (RIP) drivers. Also see Guten-print (formerly known as gimp-print), Linuxprinting.org open source drivers for X, and Turboprint If you have 10.2.2 or earlier see the helpful utilities. HP support for HP support added for C8150, C8180, C8183, and C8150 in Mac OS X 10.5
  • Lexmark, and Apple article 307081 discusses how to install Lexmark drivers on Mac OS X 10.5. Also see Guten-print (formerly known as gimp-print), and Lexmark's Panther (Mac OS X 10.3) important note.
  • Minolta printer drivers
  • OKI and their C3300 and C3400 drivers for 10.5
  • Peninsula Group's Thermal Printer drivers for several different Thermal printers.
  • Ricoh
  • Samsung, also see Linuxprinting.org's drivers. According to one report on Apple Discussions, the 10.4.1 update has been reported to solve a Samsung 1710 printer's inability to print on 10.4.0 with its Samsung ML-1000 driver.
  • Tektronix (supported by Xerox)
  • Serial printing guide - Print to non-USB, Parallel, or ethernet printers using old Apple serial technology
  • Unofficial known compatible printers with Airport Express and Extreme
  • Xerox

    Migrating from 10.1 to 10.2 using Gimp Print

    Several printer models are no longer supported under Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) that may have been supported under Mac OS X 10.0 or 10.1, some will be have new support added later on, check with the printer vendor if they are going to build Jaguar support.
    There is a temporary solution for numerous printers using Guten Print (formerly known as Gimp Print) (download the latest ppc version),
    with instructions on Allosx.com to install it. Here is the Developer Site for Gimp Print.

    Migrating from 10.0 to 10.1

    Two tips for migrating between Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 printers:

    One person in Macfixit reported problems getting the drivers to still work, but found a workaround:
    "Yup, I am running 10.1.2. it's entirely possible the new drivers
    wouldn't show up if you aren't running 10.1.2.
    I fixed my problem, there was something wrong with the installer I
    believe. I removed all of my HP drivers, then removed the receipt that said
    I had installed it, and ran Software Update.
    After that, the Print Center launched fine, and found my printer.
    BTW, tons of people are having the problem - check out macintouch.com
    and other posts here."

    From the sounds of this, if you have an old driver and can't get the update
    to work, you might consider removing the old drivers for your particular model before
    applying the update.
    A second person mentioned on Macfixit: "I have gotten my deskjet 940c to work with 10.1. Before you upgrade to 10.1, (while 10.0.4 is still
    installed), pull the deskjet folder out of '/Library/Printers/hp/'. Save this to your desktop.
    Upgrade to 10.1. Then, install the contents of this folder back to the new deskjet folder in
    '/Library/Printers/hp/deskjet'. My Print Center immediately recognized the printer."

    Parallel printing support

    USBTB - offers a variety of USB and Parallel printing solutions for both Mac OS X PowerPC and Intel Native solutions based on open source drivers

    Strydent's Powerprint supports several printers that use Parallel technology in the Mac OS X's Classic environment. For details, visit their OS X FAQ page.

    Keyspan makes a Mac OS X 10.2 compatible USB to parallel printer adapter with additional drivers.
    Return to top of page | or visit this site's directory to Mac OS X related links on the web.

    Apple Stylewriter Compatibility

    Ages ago in the early days of the Mac, Apple teamed together with Canon (Stylewriter I through 2500) and HP (4100, 4500, and 6500) to make a series of inkjet printers with Apple's own logo on them. Now you can bring those printers to Mac OS X, thanks to drivers packaged for Mac OS X by Christian Walther, and Keyspan's USB to Serial adapters, the Canon based printers are supported. For the HP based printers, you can use Gutenprint or HPIJ drivers with the Serial Print Enabler.