M477fdn not fully supported on Mac?

[Conniption]

Hello, we have a new HP M477fdn.

We have a question about printer drivers and utility software, please:  Why isn't there a printer profile for the M477 series?


This is a very nice printer, sitting next our old HP 4050dtn, wired Ethernet connection.  Firmware datecode is 20160331.

We have two computers running Mac OS X 10.9.5 "Mavericks".

We installed the most recent HP printer software update (hpprinterdriver3.1.dmg) downloaded from apple.com.

We also installed the HP essentials (hp-printer-essentials-L-4_9_0.pkg) downloaded from hp.com.  We had to download this because the "HP Easy Start" program does not work, as several other people have reported on this support forum.

In "System Preferences" -> "Printers & Scanners" -> the only option to set up this printer is "Generic PostScript Printer".  It works, but it appears to have limited functionality.

In system preferences, we found the profile to set up fax:  "HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477.Fax" and that works as expected.

In system preferences, we expected to see a profile to set up the printer:  "HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477" but that does not exist.  Why not?  What are we missing?

Thank you!

[Conniption · Accepted solution]

Following up, for the record.

With Mac OS X 10.9 the "Generic PostScript Printer" is the only option.

The M477fdn does work with Mac OS X 10.9, and as seen below, you're not missing very much with "Generic PostScript Printer."

We tried another Mac with 10.11.2 "El Capitan" which at the time of writing is the most recent OS version.  Again the "HP Easy Start" program did not work, so we used the same "hp-printer-essentials-L-4_9_0.pkg" downloaded from hp.com.

The only additional feature we see when printing with Mac OS X 10.11 is a checkbox for "Print Black & White."

Your mileage may vary.

[spikul]

Just installed on a new M477fdn today.  Mac 20160921 from the hp website was the version.  We are on Mac OSX 11. 

Driver works great.  Can fax from MS Word and print just fine.  Print driver has the same color/black and white options, though they are not in Mac user friendly layout format. 

The advanced turndown is in pretty small print and it is closed by default.  You can really miss it on the lower left hand portion of the print dialogue. 

Just wish that I could set the printer default to do this.  It would save me a great deal of time.