MacOS – Scanning over ethernet, natively in OS X

driverethernetmacosprintingscanning

Yesterday, I purchased an HP LaserJet M1212NF.

It, like many other printers, can't scan over ethernet natively in OS X.

That is, I can scan using the stupid HP utilities that I hate (not going to happen), but I can't do it from Preview, Image Capture, or the "scan" button that's supposed to show up on the right-hand side of the pane after double-clicking the printer in the print & scan control panel.

This is a problem for me because part of my workflow is to scan documents using 3rd party apps in order to immediately organize, tag and file them. But these apps rely on OS X recognizing the scanner, which it isn't.

Does anyone have any experience hacking the drivers, or otherwise making OS X behave in the way that I expect?

Best Answer

Harv, This is not the answer you want to hear. I went with the Brother printer/scanner models because it was clear that the HP drivers that they supply to Apple often do not support network scanning (there may be a few exceptions). The Brother drivers do.

The other recommendation I have seen is to use the drivers that come with the OS, not the installable ones. In some cases, it seems that the scan works when the installables are not present.

Also, if the printer has SMB sharing, that sometimes needs to be turned on (usually only available on the higher end models with hard drives).

~Hilton