Printing apparatus and method

A printing method for performing printing by causing a carriage equipped with a printhead having a plurality of printing elements arranged in a predetermined direction to scan across a printing medium in a direction that intersects the direction in which the printing elements are arranged, thereby performing printing on the medium, said method comprising:

• a dividing step of dividing the printing elements into a plurality of blocks each consisting of a predetermined number of successive printing elements;
• a receive step of storing print data, which has been transmitted in raster form, in a receive buffer;
• a buffer step of dividing and storing the data, which has been stored in the receive buffer, in a print buffer having plurality of areas corresponding to the blocks;
• a data shifting step of shifting, in accordance with printing elements used in the scan, the data in the corresponding area of the print buffer;
• and
• a control step of establishing correspondence between the areas of the print buffer and respective ones of the blocks in accordance with distance over which the printing medium is transported after the scan, and calculating the amount of the shift.

A program for controlling a printing apparatus in which a carriage equipped with a printhead having a plurality of printing elements arranged in a predetermined direction is made to scan across a printing medium in a direction that intersects the direction in which the printing elements are arranged, thereby performing printing on the medium, said program having program code corresponding to:

• a dividing step of dividing the printing elements into a plurality of blocks each consisting of a predetermined number of successive printing elements;
• a receive step of storing print data, which has been transmitted in raster form, in a receive buffer;
• a buffer step of dividing and storing the data, which has been stored in the receive buffer, in a print buffer having plurality of areas corresponding to the blocks;
• a data shifting step of shifting, in accordance with printing elements used in the scan, the data in the corresponding area of the print buffer;
• and
• a control step of establishing correspondence between the areas of the print buffer and respective ones of the blocks in accordance with distance over which the printing medium is transported after the scan, and calculating the amount of the shift.

A storage medium storing a program for controlling a printing apparatus in which a carriage equipped with a printhead having a plurality of printing elements arranged in a predetermined direction is made to scan across a printing medium in a direction that intersects the direction in which the printing elements are arranged, thereby performing printing on the medium, said storage medium storing program code corresponding to:

• a dividing step of dividing the printing elements into a plurality of blocks each consisting of a predetermined number of successive printing elements;
• a receive step of storing print data, which has been transmitted in raster form, in a receive buffer;
• a buffer step of dividing and storing the data, which has been stored in the receive buffer, in a print buffer having plurality of areas corresponding to the blocks;
• a data shifting step of shifting, in accordance with printing elements used in the scan, the data in the corresponding area of the print buffer;
• and
• a control step of establishing correspondence between the areas of the print buffer and respective ones of the blocks in accordance with distance over which the printing medium is transported after the scan, and calculating the amount of the shift.