Printer and document scanner

[eisa01]

I need to buy a printer, and it would also be convenient to have a document scanner

Would you get an all-in-one, or is it worth it to buy two different units?

I'm thinking an all-in-one is more bulky, and two different means you can stash away one or the other when you don't use it?
This would be used maybe once a month for the printer, and even less for the scanner

For printers or AIOs: Is Brother still the best?
For document scanner: Is SnapScan still the best? I see they use Rosetta for the macOS software, which is a bit concerning?

If I go for an AIO, the Brother DCP-L3560CDW seems to be most popular in Norway

 

[japtor]

If the use for both is that rare, I think AIO is fine? With separate devices you'd have double the things you rarely use instead of just one. What kind of printing and scanning are we talking about though? Lots of documents or just like single pages/photos or something?

I have a small Epson AIO just stashed in a corner on a small stand that I rarely use...my biggest issue is the rare use gives clogged ink issues or something. Like I expect to have to clean print heads and all that jazz, not sure if other ink jets have the same issue. Lasers (or LED in the case of that linked Brother) no clue, the ones I've had in my life have always gotten regular use.

For scanning there's still the built in Image Capture app. Didn't know it till just now but apparently my Epson works with it, Brothers do too, at least in past experience. For the Brothers at least, I usually just used the built in scan to FTP function, although part of that was probably just out of convenience because the printer wasn't right next to the computer.

 

[phoenix_rizzen]

We've been using a Brother MFC-L3710CW for over 5 years now without issues. Takes 3rd-party toner cartridges without issues, colour scanning/copying/printing. The Android iPrint&Scan app is very basic but does everything we need for scanning documents to PDF for e-mailing to others. The Windows scanning tool just works with it. Includes USB, Ethernet, and Wifi connections. Linux works via IPP and CUPS. No clue about MacOS support as we don't use Apple products at home.

Brother seems to be the last bastion of good laser printing at home, especially if you want to use 3rd-party toner or access it via non-Windows systems.

 

[jaberg]

+1 on Brother laser printers. No problems with MacOS. If I needed a flatbed scanner, I’d get their all-in-one laser.

 

[byrningman]

I might be shopping for something like this myself, so thanks everyone for the Brother laser tip. Mostly printing text, so laser is preferable for me. With inkjet all-in-ones and Macs, in recent years I’ve had good experiences with HP and bad experiences with Epson. Anecdotal of course.

OP should also consider using something like Swiftscan on iPhone or iPad, which I do a lot of work on (academic research). A flatbed scanner can be just what’s needed sometimes though, so for that purpose I think an AIO printer is probably the way to go.

 

[cateye]

Agreed, there's no reason to look beyond Brother. One of a tiny handful of brands where I feel like I can recommend any of their products without hesitation. They work great with Macs, no issues.

I had a nearly 15 year old Brother B&W Laser that still worked fine, but I really wanted something that supported AirPrint, so I gave it to a neighbor and replaced it with the modern equivalent model. I fully expect it to last just as long.

For scanning there's still the built in Image Capture app. Didn't know it till just now but apparently my Epson works with it

I have a positively ancient Epson flatbed scanner that I can't bear to get rid of because it produces excellent scans, and is (somehow) still fully supported by ImageCapture. It's easily the oldest piece of kit I still have in regular use.

 

[eisa01]

If the use for both is that rare, I think AIO is fine? With separate devices you'd have double the things you rarely use instead of just one. What kind of printing and scanning are we talking about though? Lots of documents or just like single pages/photos or something?

We're talking printing a couple to 40 pages every month or so, and then scanning batches. Biggest batch will be me digitalizing old notes so I can throw them away No plans to scan any photos

Good to know Brother is still the best!

FYI: If you are confused with the model names, DCP means all in one, while MFC means AIO incl. fax

 

[Louis XVI]

The Verge still has the best take on printers:

Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine​

 

[effgee]

Just piling on with everybody else on the love for Brother laser printers. We’ve got two in the house, one duplex color model and the other a very old super-simple b/w one, and they just work. Zero fuss.

On the scanning front, on average I’ve only got a handful of documents to scan each week, so after my old Epson scanner died a few years back I briefly researched dedicated document scanners but found them way too expensive for my needs. Briefly used Evernote’s Scannable app for iOS but once their service became sufficiently enshittified, I sprung for “QuickScan”, a privacy-friendly scanning app that does everything I need in terms of document scanning (incl. OCR, document formatting and -routing). I’m sure there are other decent ones that are equally good, QuickScan’s just the one I settled on. Might be an avenue worth exploring.

Spoiler: “I keep an eye out for this when looking into new apps…”

 

[curih]

I've had a brother MFC for over a decade. They didn't port the old software to Apple Silicon, but it still worked through the generic drivers using Preview to capture for quite a while. Unfortunately, I tried to use it yesterday and Preview couldn't find it. Printing still works fine. Probably see if I can rectify that, but the last few times I scanned with it I had to reboot it and that didn't work this time. Anyway, over a decade out of a consumer grade MFC isn't really anything to complain about.

On the scanning side, if this is just occasional use and it's an option for you, "Scan from iPhone" works great. It's 100x faster than the brother ever was and the quality is better too. The downsides are no automatic document feed and the need to be careful about lighting so there isn't a shadow in the capture.

 

[effgee]

I’m sure you’ve tried this already, and that both Preview.app and it use the same OS innards, but have you tried if “Image Capture.app” Apple ships with macOS might be able to discover your scanner?

Re: scanning; I’ve got the lighting covered (heh) with a BenQ Halo screen bar, but yes, automated feed would definitely be an issue with using a handheld device if I had a need for that. Certainly not a viable option if you frequently scan larger batches of documents.

 

[japtor]

Re: scanning; I’ve got the lighting covered (heh) with a BenQ Halo screen bar, but yes, automated feed would definitely be an issue with using a handheld device if I had a need for that. Certainly not a viable option if you frequently scan larger batches of documents.

I made a little phone scanning setup in my kitchen with a phone tripod/stand and cutting board against the wall under the under cabinet lighting. Wouldn't want to do it for a crapload of pages but worked to knock out a few.

But yeah in any case phone scanning might be worth a shot if the notes or whatever don't necessarily work well in an ADF.

 

[gabemaroz]

I have a small Epson AIO just stashed in a corner on a small stand that I rarely use...my biggest issue is the rare use gives clogged ink issues or something. Like I expect to have to clean print heads and all that jazz, not sure if other ink jets have the same issue.

Do you leave it plugged in? If you unplug it the ink will definitely dry out and cause clogs. Modern inkjets will run a regularly scheduled clean so long as they remain plugged in to avoid this issue.

Back to OP, my vote is also Brother. We have one of the DCP all-in-one inkjets (T520W) at home. Never had a single issue in 10 years. It does run the aforementioned schedule at irregular hours, but never at night from what I can recall.

 

[japtor]

Do you leave it plugged in? If you unplug it the ink will definitely dry out and cause clogs. Modern inkjets will run a regularly scheduled clean so long as they remain plugged in to avoid this issue.

Yeah always plugged in. I guess that would explain random noises I've heard before but guess it's not often or thorough enough to get around the issue.

 

[Honeybog]

I’ve used some version of the Brother MFC/DCPs for ages. I’ve never had one break, and the high capacity toner cartridges are great.

On the software front, there’s no reason to ever use anything but Image Capture. It’s one of the all-time great stock apps from a time when Apple actually knew how to make stock apps. If I’m using a scanner plugged into a workstation, I always just unplug it and plug it into my Mac, so I can save myself the bother of dealing with whatever rubbish capture software was installed on the workstation.

 

[timezon3]

Another happy Brother B&W laser AIO + Image Capture user here. It's networked, leave it plugged in all the time, it wakes from lan, and just works every damn time. Rock solid over 10+ years. That said, I have no idea what current models are like since this old one is so great!

 

[curih]

I’m sure you’ve tried this already, and that both Preview.app and it use the same OS innards, but have you tried if “Image Capture.app” Apple ships with macOS might be able to discover your scanner?

I'll give it a try. Did a little internet research yesterday. Found multiple people with the same model and scanning not working after a specific Mac OS update. I might be able to resurrect it with the last drivers they did produce. But failing that, there's a third party paid driver (Vuescan) that looks like it will work and has a free trial (with watermark) to verify that.

 

[DrDuuude!]

It's really nice to have a dedicated scanner if you're scanning piles of documents.
Personally, I've got a brother Laser (HL-2395DW) that has a built in flatbed scanner.
Then I've got a Scansnap for my high volume document scanning (which I do a lot of).

Preview will scan from the flatbed without issues, and I use the ScanSnap software for document scanning (does OCR, etc).

The printing is rock solid too. I think I've had this unit 6-7 years, and have never had a problem. Stays on the wireless network without issues.

 

[wco81]

I’ve used some version of the Brother MFC/DCPs for ages. I’ve never had one break, and the high capacity toner cartridges are great.

On the software front, there’s no reason to ever use anything but Image Capture. It’s one of the all-time great stock apps from a time when Apple actually knew how to make stock apps. If I’m using a scanner plugged into a workstation, I always just unplug it and plug it into my Mac, so I can save myself the bother of dealing with whatever rubbish capture software was installed on the workstation.

I've had an MFC for about 10 years as well. I've gotten far more use out of the scanner than I ever anticipated, dealing with legal documents and such.

The only thing I wonder about is whether to get one which would be better for photos. I don't expect to print a lot but might be nice to print occasionally rather than go to CVS to make passport prints.

It seems that the market is segmented somewhat between general multi function devices and those which are more geared photos, including supporting larger prints. I think some of the photo centric-printers also have scanning as well but maybe not as useful with other features than photo prints.

I used to use some old software which stopped working with a MacOS upgrade -- we're talking on a 2017 iMac so not that long ago. So I found Brother iPrint&Scan app on their site, presumably supports several of their MFCs. I notice they update it regularly and it's on the Mac OS App Store.

Yeah the ink usage is bad but easy to find cheap 3rd party cartridges. Of course for better photo quality, I would assume the ink cartridges get more pricey.

The other thing I'd like to upgrade is maybe if it supports 802.11n or better, still not stuck on 802.11b or some other antiquated 2.4 Ghz standard which doesn't support WPA3 at least?

 

[mklein]

Quite unhappy with my previous Brother printer. Started printing lines on the paper that could never get solved. At some point I had replaced every internal swappable part.

Switched to Canon color laser and it's been truly flawless. 632C.

 

[curih]

FYI, if anyone else is sitting on a scanner too old to have usable drivers, Vuescan third party drivers seems to work quite well. Resurrected my older Brother MFC with minimal effort.

 

[gregatron5]

+1 on Brother laser printers. No problems with MacOS.

I bought a new Brother color laser printer and… had problems. First was the colors looked like shit. I know I’m not getting photo quality from a laser printer, but it was really bad. Second was it wasn’t printing to scale. Everything was shrunk a little to fit in printable margins, and if I overrode the scale to print at 100% the printer would just fail the job silently. (An error message briefly flashed on the printer’s LCD screen but no user accessible log entry or error was reported to the computer.) It didn’t matter if I used macOS drivers (which are AirPrint only for new printers) or Brother’s software.

Granted, this is over network/WiFi. It might work better plugged in via USB, but I doubt it since it would presumably still use the AirPrint driver.

I was about to install the CUPS driver for an older model printer of the same line, but I found another workaround: set it up via IP address (instead of Bounjour/ZeroConf) and use the Generic PS Printer driver. Colors were waaaay better and it would actually print at 100% scale. Smart enough to only use black when printing something with no color in it, too. Only other thing I had to do was make an address reservation on my router so it wouldn’t keep getting different IP addresses from the DHCP server.

 

[japtor]

set it up via IP address (instead of Bounjour/ZeroConf) and use the Generic PS Printer driver

Huh I would think it'd let you pick the generic driver still. Can you manually enter the Bonjour address (...usually slightly funky and verbose by default iirc) and use the generic driver?

 

[benwiggy]

I have a positively ancient Epson flatbed scanner that I can't bear to get rid of because it produces excellent scans, and is (somehow) still fully supported by ImageCapture. It's easily the oldest piece of kit I still have in regular use.

I have a 20-year-old EPSON scaner, which is also excellent; and I was surprised that EPSON updated the ICA drivers to Universal Binary in January 2024.

 

[gregatron5]

Huh I would think it'd let you pick the generic driver still. Can you manually enter the Bonjour address (...usually slightly funky and verbose by default iirc) and use the generic driver?

I have no idea. I’ll try to remember to check when I get back home.

 

[Hap]

I love my ScanSnap document scanners - they cannot be beat for documents and we have flatbed Canon's for photos. For printing, we have a networked Brother laser printer that does fine (hell of a lot more reliable than the Konica Minolta's we used to have) and for those rare photos, a Canon Pro 10.

I don't like AIO scanner/printers personally as I've seen many have one function fail, thus leaving you with a dilemma - get another AIO or get a second unit for the function that failed. YMMV.

I have a less than a year old Brother portable document scanner (ADS-1700W) I'll ship to the first in this thread that wants it for the cost of shipping. Got it for my dad, and he's been unable to use it (age related confusion). I need to find a compatible power supply (EDIT: Found a 5V/2A - I keep all my old wall warts for this very purpose), it got lost in the move from assisted living to memory care.

 

[gregatron5]

I have a less than a year old Brother portable document scanner (ADS-1700W) I'll ship to the first in this thread that wants it for the cost of shipping.

I’m in.

 

[Hap]

I’m in.

Responded to PM

 

[japtor]

I need to find a compatible power supply (EDIT: Found a 5V/2A - I keep all my old wall warts for this very purpose)

Getting off topic here, but for future/other reference, that got me thinking it seems like something that could also be addressed with a standard 15W (5V/3A) USB-C brick and cable if there was an adapter...quick search on Amazon shows it definitely seems to be a thing. Now which one no clue, so won't link any, but it's definitely possible. I'm now also vaguely recalling a video I saw a while back about adapting old consoles to USB-C too with similar adapters and hacks.

 

[torp]

I have zero problems with Macs with a xerox b225 all in one. Double sided printing, document feeder for scanning (and flatbed ofc). It’s only b&w though. And I’ve only used it via Ethernet.

 

[eisa01]

May not need a printer yet after all, but I just picked up an old SnapScan S1500M for ~10 USD that seems to work just fine It's a very small device compared to a normal laser printer!

You can use it with VueScan (~10 USD/month subscription or purchase), and you can download the old SnapScan software here that still work on macOS Sequoia! (Found in this Apple discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255835743?answerId=260909370022&sortBy=rank#260909370022 )

 

[iljitsch]

+1 on Brother laser printers. No problems with MacOS. If I needed a flatbed scanner, I’d get their all-in-one laser.

Yeah got one of those this summer and it's really nice: it prints very fast and very high quality. The integrated scanner is nice because you can very easily make copies. The advantage of laser is that the toner doesn't dry out so it doesn't matter if you go long stretches between print jobs. Color laser is more expensive and the colors aren't as good as inkjet, though.

 

[iljitsch]

Getting off topic here, but for future/other reference, that got me thinking it seems like something that could also be addressed with a standard 15W (5V/3A) USB-C brick and cable if there was an adapter...quick search on Amazon shows it definitely seems to be a thing.

Yes. And because USB-C power delivery can do 5 / 9 / 12 / 15 / 20 V and now even any voltage between 3.3 and 21 V, there's a lot of adapters that plug into a USB-C brick and provide the required voltage, such as 9 or 12 for those consoles, using the desired proprietary plug. There's a tiny little chip in the USB-C connector that requests the desired voltage from the brick.

 

[cateye]

Resurrecting this thread to ask: Does anyone here use the ScanSnap iX1300 with a Mac and have any comments, pro or con?

Feeling like it's time to retire my flatbed scanner to just art and photo duties. It's fine for single page documents, but multiple pages is a real slog and I find myself needing to ingress more and more documents like that lately. Would prefer not to spend a ton, so the ~$260 price appeals to me. Don't need something, like, super duper office-class. Just something I can dump pages in and have them scan without having to manually nurse the process along.

 

[armwt]

I don't have the iX1300, but I DO have an older ScanSnap, and have been a big fan of them for a few years. The only real gripe I have is on the support side. Seems that they like to drop software support for older hardware that SHOULD work just fine. Mine is an old S1500, that I bought when my previous one would no longer with with MacOS, and now I'm starting to see the writing on the wall with software support again, with no Apple Silicon drivers for mine, so stuck with Rosetta the last time I checked.

All that being said, the hardware has been fantastic, does exactly what it says it will and has been one of my favorite hardware devices for years.

 

[cateye]

That's unfortunate, but not unexpected (retiring software compatibility). Just the way of things. Knowing that the hardware does what it should without drama is more important, so that's good to hear.

 

[armwt]

FWIW, just read up in the thread, and saw the comments about VueScan. I'd used it YEARS ago (15-20!) for flatbed scanning, so downloaded and tested, and it appears to work perfectly with my S1500. (haven't paid for the license to verify, but at least scanning and displaying on screen worked perfectly and as fast or faster than the ScanSnap software - I just want to figure out how to make the scanner's button work to launch the software instead of the ScanSnap software, but looks like a very viable solution and well worth the $50 license for me.

 

[cateye]

Good to know. I too have used VueScan, although it's been years and years. I seem to remember the UI was kind of trash, though (wasn't it a Java app, at one point?) Maybe I'll explore it again, since using my ancient flatbed with ImageCapture.app, while "fine," is not without some occasional hiccups.

 

[Hap]

About six months ago I upgraded from an S1500M to an ix1600. It just works. There is not a whole lot else to say.

You do have to have the ScanSnap software running on a computer to use the one touch button on the Scanner.

 

[sdh]

About six months ago I upgraded from an S1500M to an ix1600. It just works. There is not a whole lot else to say.

You do have to have the ScanSnap software running on a computer to use the one touch button on the Scanner.

Agreed. Although ScanSnap recently added support for scanning to a SMB folder (if you have a NAS), it is the bare minimum implementation. If you want the categorizing features, you need to scan to your computer.