Printers that Work With Mac OS X?

Question

I'm planning to purchase a printer + scanner soon and want to have one that will be able to work with Mac, as well as Windows machines. I am hoping for one that will have a wireless printing/scanning feature.

There are certain types of printers that I heard that work with Macs, but I'm not sure what differentiates them from other normal printers.

What's the difference?

Answer 1

Printers are easy, they mostly all work with Macs. Scanners are another story, and drivers for those used to be complex to find and use.

However 10.6 introduced far better support for scanners and a number of those now work just out of the box. I recommend you go for one listed as compatible if possible as an Apple maintained driver is more likely to keep working when you upgrade.

You can find the list of all printers and scanners supported out-of-the-box by Mac OS X 10.6 in this knowledge base entry.

Answer 2

Drivers.

The printers that will work with Mac will have OS X drivers. These days, it's rare to find a printer without a driver available.

I would start here:

http://www.macworld.com/products/printers.html