Which driver for Broother printers

[Rigido]

Hi all,
I have a MFC3770 and I tried to print a scanned (300DPI) driver license and result was unreadable, so I tried to set an higher quality well, the only quality I could choose was "Normal". From the system settings I found that the current driver is AirPlay 3.0 so I added two more printers one with CUPS 4.0.5 and one with BR-Script 10.4.
CUPS and BR show more options and I can choose quality between Normal and High. With BR printing is very slow, with AirPlay everything looks right under magnifying glass.

What are other Brother users using? Are you satisfied with poor options of the AirPlay?

Thanks

 

[Thirio2]

I have problems with my older brother printer and was thinking about the MFC3770 based on consumer reports, but it sounds like brother and apple still don’t play well together. I hope someone can answer your questions.

 

[chrfr]

Hi all,
I have a MFC3770 and I tried to print a scanned (300DPI) driver license and result was unreadable, so I tried to set an higher quality well, the only quality I could choose was "Normal". From the system settings I found that the current driver is AirPlay 3.0 so I added two more printers one with CUPS 4.0.5 and one with BR-Script 10.4.
CUPS and BR show more options and I can choose quality between Normal and High. With BR printing is very slow, with AirPlay everything looks right under magnifying glass.

What are other Brother users using? Are you satisfied with poor options of the AirPlay?

Thanks

I think you mean AirPrint, but yes, you'll almost certainly find that driver is the most reliable.

 

[WindBlast]

Hi,
I have Macbook Air M1, Sonoma 14.2.1 and DCP-J4110DW. Printer driver is CUPS 4.5.9. and print quality is good. I haven't noticed any differences compared to the previous driver or OS versions. I do not use AirPrint as it does not have FastPrint option.

 

[Rigido]

Today I made some tests, printing the color jpg of a driving license with AirPrint (yes chrfr, I meant that ) , CUPS Normal and High and PS Normal and High both color and mono...and I must admit that "lesser is better".
I mean that AirPrint driver gives you less choices but quality (using a magnifying glass) is the same, with the best matching colors.
(All the tests were made with default options changing just Quality when possible)

 

[Tagbert]

Are you using BrotherPrint&Scan to do your scanning? I don’t use that for our printer but I do use it for our Brother scanner. I’ve never had problems with the scans from it.

 

[jdw13]

Same for me, I have MFC-7860DW connected over Ethernet and use Brother iPrint&Scan without any extra drivers.

 

[lostless]

I ran into a small scanning bug using apples drivers for my brother printer recently. If you were to scan multiple images in one go, the scanner would just freeze after scanning the first image. Downloaded brothers drivers and have had no issues.

 

[arc of the universe]

ah, yes, printing, the last mile is always the problem. i have forgotten about printer issues.

many years ago i can honestly say that brother was almost the only printer that could reliably print from a mac.
but that's just not true anymore.
its more about brother printers just being more finicky internally i think than software or firmware issues.

anyway, i gave up on them and went over to Epson.
several years ago, epson never worked reliably with mac/iOS, but not so now. epson printers play well with macs - iOS Air Print, multiple paper sizes, etc etc.

when the OP mentioned CUPS printing, all the ugliness of working with brother printers came swelling back into my brain. CUPS software really saved the day - but that was >10 years ago.

 

[chrfr]

anyway, i gave up on them and went over to Epson.
several years ago, epson never worked reliably with mac/iOS, but not so now. epson printers play well with macs - iOS Air Print, multiple paper sizes, etc etc.

when the OP mentioned CUPS printing, all the ugliness of working with brother printers came swelling back into my brain. CUPS software really saved the day - but that was >10 years ago.

Modern Brother printers are probably the most trouble-free of any brand when used with Macs now. AirPrint has removed all the hassle of printing, as long as the printer supports it.

 

[Kim Larni]

I have the DCP-L2537DW, I use AirPrint with no problems at all. Using Image Capture for most of the scanning. 600 dpi is good enough for most tasks. If I need bigger resolutions I use the Brother Print&Scan app.

 

[megaksa]

Recently got MFC-9970cdw as a gift. Printer installs rather well. It doesn't support Bonjour/mDNS, so is not auto-detected. Can be added via "Add, printer, scanner or fax" -> IP tab:
- Address: fixed ip address or host name (I use DHCP to assign static IP + host, so both work)
- Protocol: LPD (I use this one) or IPP
- Use (driver): Brother MFC-9970CDW CUPS or Brother MFC-9970CDW BR-Script3. I use former, but the only difference I've noticed is that the former shows nice real printer picture. Generic PostScript Printer should work as well.

As for scanner I wasn't able to use it using standard Brother-supplied software. It seems that some time ago Brother stopped including oldish printers in the list (aka stopped the support). Compatibility list:

OSvC Header

xszdcsxc

help.brother-usa.com

VueScan (https://www.hamrick.com/) worked for me. It doesn't auto-detect the printer and UI for adding a printer manually is somewhat clumsy, but eventually everything worked. Whey should have added a list of manual printers instead of replacing a scanned list with a single printer. Just in case, to add such old printer, in Prefs set mode to Manual, IP address: Printer's IP address, then search for Printer USB VendorID and ProductID and set them as well. Latter can be found on the program home page: https://www.hamrick.com/. Just search for the specific scanner model.