Ever since Leopard, there have been the odd report of printers failing where once they used to work with Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger. Over time, these issues should be resolved once the printer companies start churning out their own updates Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard printer drivers but for the time being there are some workarounds. For some printers at least.

One of the printers in question is the Fuji Xerox 203A Monochrome Laser Jet printer. To the unwary, it may appear that the current Mac OS X 10.4 printer driver seems to install correctly but its not until the user attempts to print that they begin to realise that all's not well between Leopard and their Fuji Xerox Docuprint 203A.

A workaround for the time being, that seems to work just fine, is to use the Brother HL-2040 series Mac OS X 10.5 CUPS driver instead of the actual Fuji Xerox Docuprint 203A driver. Some users have even reported success using the Brother HL-2030 series CUPS driver as well.

You have to carry out some steps before you can successfully use your Fuji Xerox Docuprint 203A with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard:

• Download the Brother HL-2040 series CUPS driver for Mac OS X 10.5
• Install the Brother HL-2040 series CUPS driver (a system restart maybe required after installation)
• Open System Preferences
• Click on Print & Fax
• Select the Fuji Xerox Docuprint 203A from the list of available printers and click the "+" button on the lower left of the Printer Setup Utility to add
• Click the drop down menu in the Print Using field and choose "Select a driver to use" (Diagram 1.0)
• Enter "Brother" in the search pane to display all the available Brother drivers and select "Brother HL-2040 series CUPS" from the list
• Click the Add button on the lower right of the Printer Setup Utility window

Diagram 1.0, Choosing an alternate driver in the Printer Setup Utility

Diagram 1.1, Enter "Brother" in the search pane and select the HL-2040 series CUPS driver

If you have successfully implemented the solution above, then you ought to have no more troubles printing from Leopard to your Fuji Xerox Docuprint 203A. If however, on the off chance that you may still encounter issues, then we suggest repeating the process but this time, using the Brother HL-2030 series CUPS driver instead.

Happy printing!!