I got an used HP LaserJet 1020 printer recently which prints mostly well when connected to a Macbook Pro. From time to time it is not printing instantly but switching it off an on resolves that usually. It also seems to need some minutes after page 1 or 2 to think about the job and to go on with following pages. Not good but enough for a small (mostly digital) home office. Tested it with OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) using the HP printer driver for the LaserJet 1022. That’s because there is no OS X driver for the 1020. I used the HP variant, not the one provided by the Gutenberg suite.

Now I was looking for a wireless printing bridge. Several options like the HP Wireless USB Print Server or devices from Logilink or TP-Link looked promising but I did not find any compatibility notes about the Mac to Print Server to LaserJet 1020 line. So I opted to try an Apple Airport Express (latest incarnation from 2012) because at least the LaserJet 1022 was listed at a compatibility list for the Airport Extrem at http://www.ifelix.net/tech/8013.html.

Finally, setup was easy and the printer is printing even more reliable (read: 100%) as when connected directly to the Mac. There is no longer any startup hiccup and also no stalled pages during a print job.

Update: At OS X 10.9 (Maverick) it seems there are not much HP printer drivers preinstalled. Looks like there is no post-install option as in 10.8. But when upgrading a 10.8 installation to 10.9 the Laserjet 1022 printer driver just works. So at a fresh 10.9 I tried to install the drivers for 10.8 and found it working without problem so far on 10.9 too. I used the HP Printer Drivers v.2.16.1 for OS X installation package from Apple.