Printing method and apparatus

A thermal transfer printer for selectively transferring a meltable ink material carried on a ribbon to a substrate intended to receive the ink material for printing an image on the substrate, the printer comprising:

• a supply spool of carrier ribbon and a take-up spool, with a span of carrier ribbon being held in tension between the spools, and the carrier ribbon carrying a layer of meltable ink for which a region of unused carrier ribbon is to be made available for printing for each printing operation;
• a print head positioned at the span of the carrier ribbon between the supply spool and take-up spool, with the carrier ribbon being positioned between the print head and the substrate;
• a print head drive mechanism configured to selectively move the print head between an extended position adjacent the span of the carrier ribbon between the spools and a retracted position spaced apart from the span of carrier ribbon between the spools and comprising heating elements selectively energizeable for transferring ink material on the span of carrier ribbon between the spools to the substrate when the print head is moved to its extended position and into contact with the carrier ribbon while the carrier ribbon is in contact with the substrate to print the image;
• wherein the print head drive mechanism is further configured to reciprocally move the print head parallel to movement of the carrier ribbon past the print head;
• a controller configured to control the print head drive mechanism to move the print head to the extended position, and to control selective energization of the heating elements on the print head while the print head is in its extended position and to control the print head drive mechanism to move the print head in a first direction along the carrier ribbon to transfer ink material from the carrier ribbon to the substrate to print a first portion of an image on a first area of the substrate;
• wherein the controller is further configured to control movement of the print head to its retracted position spaced apart from the span of carrier ribbon between the spools after printing the first portion of the image, and then to control movement of the print head in a second direction opposite to the first direction as the carrier ribbon and substrate are also moved in the second direction to position a region of unused carrier ribbon, from which meltable ink is to be transferred and that is adjacent to a region of used carrier ribbon from which at least some meltable ink material has been previously transferred to print the first portion of the image, at the print head for enabling the print head to print some of the meltable ink from the region of unused carrier ribbon to print a second portion of the image;
• and
• wherein the controller is further configured to control movement of the print head to its extended position, and to control selective energization of the heating elements on the print head while the print head is in its extended position and while controlling movement of the print head in the first direction along the substrate to transfer ink from the unused region of the carrier to the substrate to print the second portion of the image on a second area of the substrate, the second area being adjacent to the first area along a longitudinal axis of the substrate and displaced relative to the first area in the first direction.