JPH047169A - Printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To print with high density without requiring that a printing dot be highly accurate or dot elements be provided highly densely by moving a dot element by a shorter distance than the distance between the dot elements in an arranging direction of the dot elements after a printing head makes one printing to a to-be-printed member. CONSTITUTION:The printing data on a matrix corresponding in number to a heat sensitive element 5a is developed into dots on a matrix twice the number of the heat sensitive elements 5a. The dot data is divided into tows of even numbers and odd numbers in a longitudinal direction (Y direction). Then, dots in the rows of odd num bers wherein the data number in the Y direction is an odd number are extracted, from which dots of the rows of even numbers are removed, whereby (b) is obtained. (c) is obtained by extracting dots in the rows of even numbers in the Y direction. The extracted figures (b)and (c) are compressed in the Y direction, so that a figure (d) having the rows of even numbers is compressed and a figure (e) having the rows of odd numbers is compressed are obtained. Thereafter, the divided data is sent to a printing head 1 and printed once to a printing tape 17. Subsequently, the heat sensi tive element 5a is moved half the distance N between the heat sensitive elements 5a in the arranging direction thereof.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a printing method using a printer that enables high-density printing without increasing the density of printing elements provided in the print head of the printer. .

(Prior art and its problems) In recent years, devices that use electronic computers, etc. to quickly process large amounts of various types of information have become widespread, and these devices also use blinking technology to print out processing results, etc. is used.

Many of these printers use impact printers such as dot printers and non-impact printers such as thermal printers.These dot printers and thermal printers express printed characters and figures as dots, that is, collections of dots. .

Therefore, in order to improve the printing quality, it is necessary to increase the density of the dots that make up the characters and figures, and in the past, various improvements have been made to the dots in order to increase the density of the dots.

However, in conventional printing devices and printing methods, in order to increase the pitch of dot data, that is, the printing density, as described above, multiple dot elements are provided in the print head, such as pins (or wires), thermal If printed, the density of the heating resistor was increased, which caused problems such as the accuracy of the print head during manufacturing or thermal interference between dot elements, and furthermore, it was expensive to solve these problems. There was a risk that this would lead to an increase in

(Object of the Invention) The present invention was developed in view of the above circumstances, and provides a printing method that can perform high-density printing without increasing the precision of the print head or increasing the density of dot elements. Its purpose is to provide.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a printing method that does not cause thermal interference between dot elements.

(Means for Achieving the Object) In order to solve the above problems, a printing method according to the present invention includes a print head in which a plurality of printing dot elements are arranged, and a print head that moves in the direction in which the dot elements are arranged. The printing apparatus includes a head driving means and a feeding means for feeding the printing target material in a direction perpendicular to the moving direction of the print head, and the print data is dot data spread out on a matrix corresponding to a multiple of the number of dot elements of the print head. is divided into a plurality of pieces according to the multiple, and when the divided data is sequentially sent to the print head and driven, the dot elements are arranged in the direction of arrangement after one printing operation by the print head on the printing target member. The present invention is characterized in that a printing step in which the printing member is moved by a distance smaller than the distance of the dot data and a feeding step in which the printing member is moved in a direction orthogonal to the arrangement direction of the dot elements are alternately and repeatedly carried out.

Note that the amount of feed in the feeding step may be the same as the amount of movement of the print head.

(Operation of the Invention) According to the above configuration, printing can be performed by alternately repeating the printing step and the feeding step, but in the printing step, when the divided data is sequentially sent to the print head and driven, the print head After one printing operation on the printing target member, the dot elements are moved in the arrangement direction by a distance smaller than the distance of these dot data, and printing is performed. After that, the process moves to the sending step. In other words, the conventional printing step ends with one printing using one dot element, but in the present invention, printing is performed by shifting the printing dots little by little in the arrangement direction by the number of times divided by - dot elements. finish.

(Example) Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

First, the configuration of a print head to which the present invention is applied will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3.

Figure 1 is a front view showing the configuration of the print head, and Figure 2 is a front view showing the configuration of the print head.
FIG. 3 is a side view of the print head shown in the figure, and FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the print head shown in FIG. 1 together with a printing tape and an ink ribbon as printing members.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 indicates a print head. This print head 1 is composed of a thermal head 3 and a heating resistor 5.
It is fixed to the displacement plate 7. The displacement plate 7 is
Main frame 1 that constitutes a printer (not shown)
) and a head bracket 13, and are fixed to the printer.

In addition, for convenience of explanation, the thermal head 3 is a heating resistor composed of five heat-sensitive elements 5a as dot elements arranged vertically in a row at predetermined intervals N, as shown in FIG. 5 shall be provided. Then, the platen roller 15 shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 is rotated by the main frame 1) so as to be in contact with the heating resistor 5 so that its rotation axis is parallel to the arrangement direction of the heat-sensitive elements 5a. It is freely supported.

The platen roller 15 is rotationally driven in a stepwise manner in the direction of arrow S shown in FIG. 3 by a feeding means such as a step motor (not shown). It is assumed that the ink ribbon 19 is fed by a distance N equal to the spacing between the heat-sensitive elements 5a.

The displacement plate 7 is formed by drilling a rectangular hole in the center of a rectangular metal plate so that the entire body has a substantially rectangular frame shape consisting of sides 7a, 7b, and 7C27d, and also has sides 7d and 7a. A corner between the sides 7b and 7c is cut out to communicate with the outside, and a diagonal slit 8 is formed from the inside to the outside in the corner between sides 7b and 7c diagonally to the above-mentioned corner. A piezoelectric element 9 is fitted between the sides 7a and 7c, the side 7a is fixed to the main frame 1) via the head bracket 13, and the side 7d is fixed to the thermal head 3. has been done.

When a voltage is applied to the piezoelectric element 9, the piezoelectric element 9 expands, so that the displacement plate 7 is deformed as a whole as shown by the dotted line in FIG.
d also moves in the long plane direction. The displacement amount of the side 7d is larger than the displacement amount of the piezoelectric element 9.

Incidentally, it is assumed that the amount of displacement of the heating resistor 5 of the print head 1 by the print head driving means having the above-mentioned configuration is set to be 1/2 of the interval N between the heat-sensitive elements 5a.

Next, the case of printing the characters rAJ will be explained with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.

First, print data formed on a 5×5 matrix corresponding to the number of heat-sensitive elements 5a, which is 5, is dotted onto a 10×IO matrix corresponding to twice the number of heat-sensitive elements 5a on the memory. Then, the expanded dot data is divided into even columns and odd columns in the vertical direction (hereinafter referred to as the Y direction). Figure 5(a) shows the character rAJ developed with 10 dots in the Y direction and 9 dots in the horizontal direction (hereinafter referred to as the X direction). FIG. 10B shows the result in which dots in even-numbered rows of data numbers in the direction have been deleted, and FIG. Further, the extracted figure is compressed in the Y direction, and a figure in which the deleted even numbered columns are packed is shown in FIG. 2(d), and a figure in which the deleted odd numbered columns are packed in is shown in FIG. 12(e).

Next, when the divided data is sequentially sent to the print head 1 and driven, a printing step is performed in which the print head 1 prints on the print tape 17, and the print tape 17 is transferred to the thermal element 5.
A feeding step of moving in a direction perpendicular to the arrangement direction of a is alternately repeated. Moreover, in each printing step, after one printing operation on the printing tape 17 by the printing head 1, the thermal elements 5a are moved in the arrangement direction.
The heat sensitive elements a are moved by 1/2 of the distance N between them.

That is, in the printing step, printing is performed based on the odd-numbered dot data shown in FIG. 3(d) and the even-numbered dot data shown in FIG. At this time, first, print a of the line data in the first column in the X direction on (e) of the same figure.
(Indicated by a solid line on the top of the figure ffl. The same applies hereinafter.) After applying a voltage to the piezoelectric element 9, the heating resistor 5 is moved in the direction of arrangement of the heat-sensitive elements 5a, that is, in the Y direction, corresponding to N/2. head shift (hereinafter referred to as head shift).

Subsequently, the line data of the first column in the X direction on dl is printed (indicated by dotted lines in the upper part of the figure). The same applies hereinafter).

This completes the step of printing the line data of the first column in the X direction.

Further, the platen roller 15 is rotationally driven by the feeding means to move the printing tape 17 along with the ink ribbon 19 by a distance N in a direction perpendicular to the arrangement direction of the heat-sensitive elements 5a (feeding step).

Next, when executing the step of printing the line data of the second column in the divided data of odd-numbered columns and even-numbered columns in the X direction, first, the line data of the second column in the X direction in FIG. After printing C, the voltage applied to the piezoelectric element 9 is set to 0 [■], the head shift is canceled, and the heating resistor 5 is moved in the -Y direction (opposite direction to the first row) to N.
After moving a distance equivalent to /2 and returning to the original position,
As in the case described above, printing d of the line data in the second column in the X direction in FIG. 3(e) is performed.

Further, the platen roller 15 is rotated by N to send the printing tape 17 along with the ink ribbon 19 by a distance N.

After that, in the same figure (print e in the third column in the X direction on ej
After applying a voltage to the piezoelectric element 9 and shifting the head in the Y direction (opposite direction to the second column), printing f for the third column is performed, and after this printing step, the printing tape 17 and ink are Send ribbon 19.

Thereafter, in the same way, by repeating the printing step and the feeding step alternately and printing up to the 8th column, as shown in FIG.
In other words, characters having the same size (height) in the Y direction as the original character size can be obtained at twice the density.

Furthermore, in the above-described example, as shown in FIG. 6 in each printing step, the print head 1 is moved in the opposite direction every time one line of data is printed. In this case, the number of head shifts is halved compared to the case where the head is shifted every - degree printing completion. This is because if the head is shifted every time - degrees of printing is completed, two head shifts are required to print one line of data.

Note that when the platen roller 15 is rotationally driven by a step motor to feed and move the printing tape 17 together with the ink ribbon 19, the character size shown in FIG. On the other hand, as shown in the same figure (g), the characters are reduced to 1/2 in both the Y and X directions, that is, the original character size and the Y and X directions are
Characters of equal size (height, width) in both directions can be obtained in a well-balanced manner and at four times higher density.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the apparent upper dot density can be doubled in both the Y direction and the X direction. Specifically, as shown in Figure 7, when printing diagonal lines, the difference in level was 66 μm (7th
Figure (a)), since the amount of movement of the thermal head 3 could be set to 33 μm, the step difference in the printed diagonal line was also 33 μm.
I was able to do this.

Furthermore, by limiting the current to the piezoelectric element, we were able to suppress the sound of 70 dB or more, which conventionally occurs during printing, to 55 dB or less.

Furthermore, the difference in line thickness formed by printing can be reduced. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, in the case of a vertical line, one dot is 0. 1mm, 2 dots is 0.1
66 mm, and the difference was 0.066 mm, but according to this embodiment, it can be halved to 0.033 mm.

In this embodiment, a piezoelectric element is used as the moving means, but the moving means is not limited to this, and any drive mechanism may be used. For example, a solenoid may be used to operate the moving means. Further, although the description has been given using a thermal printer as an example, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to any printer that expresses printed characters and figures as a collection of dots.

Further, the above embodiment relates to an example in which the print data is expanded into dots on a matrix whose side is twice the number of dot elements of the print head, but the print data is expanded to three times the number of dot elements of the print head. The structure may be such that dots are developed on a matrix whose sides are double or higher multiples.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the printing method of the present invention, it is possible to achieve high dot density without increasing the precision of the print head or increasing the density of dot elements. Fine and clear printing can be performed without thermal interference between elements.

Note that if the feed amount of the feed step is made the same as the print head movement amount, the print density will not be biased in either the print head movement direction or the print target material feed direction, resulting in clear and well-balanced printing. is obtained.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing the configuration of a print head to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is a side view of the print head that prints in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a plan view showing the printing tape and ink ribbon as printing members, FIG.
) to fg) are explanatory diagrams of the printing method according to the present invention based on divided printing data, FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the driving relationship between the piezoelectric element and the feeding means together with printed dot data, and FIG.
Figures fa) and (b) are explanatory diagrams showing the density when diagonal lines are printed, and Fig. 8 is a comparative explanatory diagram of the thickness of lines printed by the method of the present invention. Code 1...Print head, 3...Thermal head, 5
...Heating resistor, 5a...Heat-sensitive element C-dont element), 7...Displacement plate, 9...Piezoelectric element, 15.
...Platen Roller Patent Applicant Max Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Miki Segawa Incontinence 1 Figure 3 Figure 2 Figure b)

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A print head in which a plurality of printing dot elements are arranged, a head driving means for moving the print head in the direction in which the dot elements are arranged, and a member to be printed in a direction perpendicular to the direction of movement of the print head. a sending means, the print data is divided into a plurality of dot data spread out on a matrix corresponding to a multiple of the number of dot elements of the print head into a plurality of pieces according to the multiple, and the divided data are sequentially sent to the print head. a printing step of moving the dot elements in the arrangement direction by a distance smaller than the distance between these dot elements after one printing operation on the printing target member by the print head; A printing method characterized by alternately repeating feeding steps in which dot elements are moved in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which they are arranged. (2) The printing method according to claim 1, wherein the amount of feeding in the feeding step is the same as the amount of movement of the print head.