How do I get an HP Laserjet 4000 to work in Snow Leopard, 10.6.8 ?
Supposedly it is not compatible, but maybe there is "workaround" For instance some sort of Universal Print Driver like HP has for this printer for Windows 7 problems.
Thanks
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I'd tend to expect a LaserJet 4000n or 4000tn would work more or less directly, via the network connection. The oldest in that general series that I've worked with were 4200n and 4300n (which are the follow-on model), but they didn't need anything special.
That printer looks to accept the HP Jetdirect 600N and 610N widgets, which are either pre-installed, or are still available and can be retrofit. (I replaced a fried JetDirect 610N in a LaserJet 4300n at one site a year or so back.)
Do you have a JetDirect and a wired network connection available with that printer?
Thanks for your previous response.
I have 3 Laserjet 4000's and 1 4100tn's. 2 of them came with Jetdirect cards, which I don't know anything about using, except I assume they are for networks and use the ethernet cables.
The printers sometimes work, but repeatedly says printer is "offline", in the OS,X printer window, but if you unplug the USB cable in the MAC and put it back in, it sometimes changes to saying "online" and primts fine. Printer LED screen always says "ready"
I don't have a network. Just using one laptop and one printer at a time.
Are there any websites where people complain to HP of Apple about the lack of backward compatability?
I think I'll ask this in a new post.
Thanks, Windybreezy
HP? Donno. Start at www.hp.com.
FWIW, HP likely retired those printers many years ago; the follow-on LaserJet 4200 and LaserJet 4300 series I've been working with are probably seven or eight years old now, and your LaserJet 4000 models are yet older.
According to Wikipedia, the LaserJet 4000 and LaserJet 4050 series was discontinued in 1999. (When or if the support for that printer has ended, I don't know. That's a question for HP.)
If you're familiar with networking and have a wired network available (and most WiFi devices have that option available), then I'd get the JetDirect path going; that's vastly easier to manage and maintain than is dealing with any other path into those printers.
Assign the JetDirect a static IP address outside the pool of addresses the local DHCP server is using, and configure a network printer at that address.
On the LaserJet 4200n and 4300n series, those provide Bonjour announcements, which means they're really easy to configure; OS X finds those automatically. And those are web-managed, meaning you can connect to the printer via Safari, and check its status and supplies. (I don't know if the LaserJet 4000 series offers that; that's older than I've worked with recently.)
HP does (did) have a universal driver for OS X, though they've probably not modified the drivers for those printers in years. (A Google search for /HP LaserJet 4000 Series Full Solution Driver Mac/ does find a set of drivers of some ilk for OS X 10.6.)
The LaserJet 4000 is old enough that the generic Postscript driver in the Apple CUPS package in OS X will probably work fine, too.
how do I get hp 4000 laserjet to work in snow leopard
