HP LaserJet Scan Problem – and its Fix

The HP LaserJet 3052 is a great piece of hardware, so long as you’re running it on Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). It wasn’t ready for Vista, although drivers were eventually updated to fully support its feature set. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Leopard didn’t quite like it, either.

Leave it to the community to come up with the answer. I remember reading this thread a few months ago (when Mac OS X 10.5 was first released), and a solution had not yet presented itself. We were getting mixed messages, not from the hardware or software – but from the company that stated full compliance with Leopard. Sure, it prints – but the scanning support was just not working properly.

The other night, as I was going through my options on the live stream (as always), ‘Datalore’ piped up and suggested a solution to the problem – as outlined in this community thread on HP’s site: HP Scan in 10.5 Leopard. Precisely my issue, and precisely my solution. Seems all you need to do is:

1. Download and install the latest drivers from HP, including this patch.
2. Upon reboot, navigate to your Applications | HP LaserJet Software | Scan folder through Finder – and there you’ll find the ‘HP Scan’ app.
3. Select the ‘HP Scan’ app’s icon, then hit Command+I (a keyboard shortcut to pull up it’s Info pane.
4. Look for the option marked ‘Open using Rosetta’ and place a checkmark in the box.

The HP Scan application should now work in Leopard. Don’t ask me why this workaround works, but at least it works – and I’m not sure where HP stands on updates.