A native Apple Silicon driver for the HP LaserJet P1007 (and P1005/P1006/P1008) on macOS.
The driver is a single 85KB binary (rastertoxqx) that converts CUPS raster data to the printer's native XQX format using JBIG compression. It links only against system libraries and runs inside the CUPS sandbox without issues. No Ghostscript, no Homebrew dependencies.
PDF → cgpdftoraster (macOS built-in) → rastertoxqx → XQX → printer
macOS already knows how to render PDFs into raster through CoreGraphics via its built-in cgpdftoraster filter. rastertoxqx takes that raster output and wraps it in the XQX/ZjStream protocol the printer expects.
You need macOS on Apple Silicon and Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
# Install the driver — compiles rastertoxqx, installs the filter, PPD, and firmware
sudo ./install.sh
# Set up automatic firmware upload when the printer is plugged in
sudo ./install-hotplug.shAfter that, go to System Settings > Printers & Scanners, add the printer, and select "HP LaserJet P1007 rastertoxqx" as the driver. Print a test page with lp -d HP_LaserJet_P1007 testpage.pdf.
The P1007 has no persistent firmware — it needs a 223KB blob uploaded over USB every time it powers on. If you ran install-hotplug.sh, this happens automatically when you plug the printer in. Otherwise you can do it manually:
lp -oraw /usr/local/share/foo2xqx/firmware/sihpP1005.dlWait for the printer light to flash orange (~5 seconds) before printing.
Check the CUPS error log with tail -f /var/log/cups/error_log.
If the printer isn't responding, it probably needs firmware uploaded — it won't accept print jobs without it.
If you get a "filter failed" error, check that the filter is installed at /usr/libexec/cups/filter/rastertoxqx. If it's missing, re-run sudo ./install.sh.
If the output is light or outlined, make sure the PPD resolution is 1200x600dpi (the default). The P1007 needs Bpp=2 for correct rendering — 600x600dpi produces faint output.
After a macOS update, recompile and reinstall with sudo ./install.sh.
The XQX protocol and JBIG compression code comes from the foo2zjs project by Rick Richardson, and the JBIG-KIT library by Markus Kuhn. Both are GPL v2+.
This driver replaced an earlier approach that used Ghostscript for PDF-to-raster rendering. That worked, but CUPS runs filters in a sandbox that blocks Homebrew libraries, so Ghostscript had to be bundled with all ~15 of its dylibs rewritten to use @loader_path/. The resulting package was ~35MB and broke on every brew upgrade ghostscript. Using macOS's built-in cgpdftoraster eliminated all of that.
This driver currently works with the P1007, but the approach applies to other models too. The rastertoxqx binary should work as-is for these XQX-protocol printers — they just need their own PPD and firmware files:
- HP LaserJet P1005
- HP LaserJet P1006
- HP LaserJet P1008
- HP LaserJet P1505
The LaserJet 1018, 1020, and 1022 use a related protocol (ZjStream) that needs a separate filter binary, but the structure is almost identical to rastertoxqx and the work is scoped out.
Beyond HP, the same porting pattern could support printers from Dell, Xerox, Samsung, and Konica Minolta that the foo2zjs project already handles on Linux.
The install script currently only supports the P1007. Support for the other models listed above is in progress — they need their own PPD files and firmware mappings, which I'm working on.
If you have one of these printers and a Mac with Apple Silicon, the most useful thing you can do right now is open an issue with your printer model and macOS version. That helps me prioritize which models to add next, and I'll reach out when there's something for you to test.