Thermal printer
AssigneeFujitsu Component Limited
InventorsNatsumi Uryu, Hiroyuki Kataoka
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thermal printer includes heating elements that generate heat according to amounts of applied energy, an energy applier that applies energy to the heating elements, a memory that stores a gradation table where energy levels to be applied to the heating elements are set for gradation levels based on a relationship between dot area ratios of an image and the amounts of energy applied to the heating elements, and a controller that transfers control data multiple times to the energy applier based on the gradation table to control the amounts of energy to be applied by the energy applier to the heating elements, each of the control data corresponding to different amounts of energy.
Claims5
A thermal printer, comprising:
- heating elements that generate heat according to amounts of energy applied thereto;
- an energy applier that applies energy to the heating elements;
- a memory that stores a gradation table where energy levels to be applied to the heating elements are set for gradation levels based on a relationship between dot area ratios of an image and the amounts of energy applied to the heating elements;
- and
- a controller that transfers control data multiple times to the energy applier based on the gradation table to control the amounts of energy to be applied by the energy applier to the heating elements, each of the control data corresponding to different amounts of energy.
A thermal printer, comprising:
- heating elements that generate heat according to amounts of energy applied thereto;
- an energy applier that applies energy to the heating elements;
- a memory that stores a gradation table where energy values are set for gradation levels based on a relationship between dot area ratios of an image and the amounts of energy applied to the heating elements;
- and
- a controller that transfers control data corresponding to gradation levels of a print image to the energy applier based on the gradation table to control the amounts of energy to be applied by the energy applier to the heating elements,
- wherein when a first image with a first gradation scale and a second image with a second gradation scale different from the first gradation scale are to be printed in a same area, the controller is configured to convert gradation levels of the first image in the first gradation scale into gradation levels in the second gradation scale of the second image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.