Mac printer errors or other problems? be sure to use the actual driver, not Apple's generic “AirPrint”

I just debugged a mysterious printer issue where a colleague was trying to print onto a ½ sheet (5✕8½") and the printer (a Brother color laser) was simply passing the page through untouched and throwing an error.

The problem was she had added the printer and used the default print driver, which is Apple’s AirPrint. This works fine for basic printing, but not for anything fancy like custom page sizes.

I downloaded the driver off of the Brother web site, installed it, and only then brought up the Add Printer window. There are two pitfalls to avoid:

1. When you click the + button at the bottom of the printer list, avoid the temptation to simply select the printer in the menu. That will use the default AirPrint driver. Choose the Add Printer… item at the top of the menu.
2. When you click the printer in the Add window (shown below), you need to wait while the system is gathering printer information (a progress spinner will appear). Once it finishes, click the Use menu and choose the option for the real driver.