Printer Drivers but no Scanner drivers provided

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Hi,

I have colour laser printer (Oki branded) of which Oki provide Mac drivers for but only for the printer not the scanner? Any advice on a possible workaround? I find it unbelievable that they provide drivers for only one part of their own multifunction device. How can they get away with this?
 

chscag

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Most Printer Scanner manufacturers provide drivers for Windows and usually do not pay much attention to OS X or Linux. Have you tried contacting OKI tech support and ask about scanner drivers? You might also want to take a look at VueScan to see if it supports your OKI.
 
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Hi,

Thanks for your reply, I spoke to Oki (at length via multiple emails) and they basically said sorry we don't do drivers for the scanner for Mac.

What annoys me is they do it drivers for the printer but this is a multi function product so why on earth would they support only part of the product. Even if the printer driver used is generically compatible with a number of their products surely the separate scanner driver would be the same?

I just find it unacceptable that a firm will patch part of a product but not the whole thing which is basically what is going on here. It's simply not fair on the consumer. This printer cost me more than £600 when bought and although that was a number of years ago I think I have grounds to expect it to still work with newer operating systems. They tell me it will work over a network or FTP but not via USB, I cannot connect it directly to my network as our router is in the lounge and this MFP is HUGE. It has to be kept in our office, having it in our lounge would be ridiculous. Is it REALLY that difficult to produce drivers?
 
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It's not unusual for a company to drop support for products after they've been discontinued for a while. I agree that it's aggravating but companies put their development resources behind the products that are going to make them money going forward.

How old is this MFP? What's the model number?

Would there be any way to extend a network cable from the router in your lounge to the spot where the MFP is located?
 
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welshred
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The printer was bought in 2007 and is the C3520 MFP.

It works like new (for printing) and despite it's age it should not be difficult to provide drivers for what is basically a USB 2.0 scanner.

It would not be practical to use a Network cable between the rooms.

I do use a cloud based machine for my business (which is Windows) so that might be my only option (or maybe using windows emulation software?
 

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