Inkjet printing system with ink-efficient font
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company
InventorsEric L. Ames, Reece Theobald, Don Carroll
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A customized font based on fixed font cells having certain non-printable pixels along its perimeter, and formed by a pixel grid having a higher dpi horizontal resolution as compared to its vertical resolution. By preventing any marking dots on adjacent pixels in a given row, a minimal amount of ink drops can be used to print digitized characters, and higher throughput is obtained by using a printhead having a nozzle pitch which is the same as the vertical print resolution, and which has a swath width which allows a complete row of character cells to be printed in a single pass of the printhead across the media.
Claims24
A memory device having a customized printing font stored therein, the font comprising a collection of characters each formed from a predetermined digitized mapping in a hybrid cell, said hybrid cell formed by a pixel grid with vertical columns spaced apart horizontally from each other an X axis resolution and with horizontal rows spaced apart from each other a Y axis resolution, wherein said X axis resolution is a higher resolution than said Y axis resolution.
4 The font of claim 1 wherein certain of said hybrid cells include a printable portion which does not incorporate at least one perimeter row of the cell.
6 The font of claim 5 wherein certain of said hybrid cells include the printable portion which does not incorporate at least one perimeter row of the cell.
The font of claim 13 wherein said Y axis resolution is less than 100 dpi.
A printing system having a customized font, comprising:
- a) a print cartridge having marking elements;
- b) a memory device coupled to said print cartridge, and storing the customized font, wherein the customized font comprises a plurality of hybrid character cells defined by a pixel grid with columns formed by vertically spaced apart pixels with a first vertical resolution, and pixel rows formed by horizontally spaced apart pixels with a second resolution horizontal resolution, wherein the second horizontal resolution has a higher pixel density than the first vertical resolution;
- and
- c) a carriage for holding the print cartridge over printing media to allow the print cartridge to apply making dots formed by digitized characters from said character cells.
18 A method of printing a row of characters in fixed pitch character cells comprising:
- selecting a font defined by bit maps wherein each bit map is formed by a pixel grid having a higher first resolution along a carriage scan axis as compared to a second resolution along a media advance axis, with each character cell having a shorter first dimension along the carriage scan axis as compared to a second dimension along the media advance axis;
- providing a printhead having a nozzle pitch which is substantially the same as the second resolution;
- and
- printing at least one complete swath of character cells in a single pass of the printhead across media.
The method of claim 18, which further includes providing a plurality of printheads each having the same nozzle pitch, wherein said printing includes printing at least one different complete swath of character cells in a revers single pass of the printheads across media.
The method of claim 18, which further includes selecting a font defined by bit maps having certain perimeter rows and columns which are not printable, including at least two non-printable columns and at least one non-printable row.
The method of claim 18, which further includes selecting a font defined by bit maps having printable rows, wherein marking dots are not allowed to be printed on adjacent pixels in any given individual row.
The method of claim 18, which further includes selecting a font defined by bit maps to form character cells which have an X axis dimension which is approximately one half of the Y axis dimension.
The method of claim 18, which further includes selecting a font defined by bit maps having a print resolution along the X axis which is approximately twice the print resolution along the Y Axis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.