Mac OS X recognizes the Symbol PL470 wireless barcode scanner as a keyboard when the base station is plugged in via USB, but it is not able to understand it. There is a specific trick involved in getting the input to match up. I use the scanner mainly to input bar codes into Delicious Library (and Delicious Library will crash if the input is not valid!). Here's how to get it to work.
It's a weird series of steps. • Make sure the scanner is synced to the base station and the base station plugged into your Mac. • Open a new document in TextEdit or TextWrangler. • Scan in a bar code. • If it doesn't work, you will either see junk/whitespace or nothing. • Now, unplug the power from the base station.
![Mac Mac](http://scancity.am/components/com_djclassifieds/images/item/116_332_thb.jpg)
BT Cradle Manual details for FCC ID Q3N-3656 made by CipherLab Co., Ltd. Document Includes. Reverse engineering of the software is prohibited.
• Scan again. You will get an error on the scanner saying it can't contact the base station.
• Plug the base station back into the electrical and hit enter on the scanner to have it reconnect. • Try scanning again.
You should now have a valid bar code, e.g. 76 followed by a line break (a keyboard return is included at the end of a valid scan). I'm not entirely sure what is happening here; my best guess is that the lack of base station connectivity causes the scanner to reset its keyboard encoding output. That, or reconnecting to the base station causes a reset or renegotiation with the computer.
Whatever the reason, it works -- happy scanning! We use the Symbol LS 4278 (link from where I buy them, ). And no, the devs don't know anything special. They asked me to find something that could scan barcodes and barf out the output into a FileMaker Pro database field.
I read good things about that model, bought one to try, and we've bought several since as we do more and more projects that include barcode scanning. Edit: macosxhints.com user cliffkujala also notes below that he uses the LS 4278.
Maybe that model is just super Mac friendly? We also use a wired USB model that works well too, but I don't have that model number on hand.
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