Printing apparatus and method of controlling printing therein

A method of controlling printing in a printing apparatus for printing by causing a carriage, on which is mounted a printhead having a plurality of printing elements, to scan across a printing medium, the plurality of printing elements being divided into a plurality of blocks based upon entered print data, said method comprising:

• a first comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of printing elements driven simultaneously in the blocks exceeds a first reference threshold;
• a second comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds a second reference threshold of a number of times such drive is performed;
• and
• a generating step of adding reference pulse data and corrected pulse data to thereby generate driving pulses of corrected pulse width if a result of comparison at said first comparison step exceeds the first reference threshold and a result of comparison at said second comparison step exceeds the second reference threshold,
• wherein on a basis of the result of the comparison at said first comparison step to the effect that the first reference threshold has been exceeded, said second comparison step performs a comparison to determine whether the number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds the second reference threshold.

A printing control program which is embodied on a computer-readable medium and is executed by a computer that controls a printing apparatus for printing by causing a carriage, on which is mounted a printhead having a plurality of printing elements, to scan across a printing medium, the plurality of printing elements being divided into a plurality of blocks based upon entered print data, said program comprising:

• a first comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of printing elements driven simultaneously in the blocks exceeds a first reference threshold;
• a second comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds a second reference threshold of a number of times such drive is performed;
• and
• a generating step of adding reference pulse data and corrected pulse data to thereby generate driving pulses of corrected pulse width if a result of comparison at said first comparison step exceeds the first reference threshold and a result of comparison at said second comparison step exceeds the second reference threshold,
• wherein on a basis of the result of the comparison at said first comparison step to the effect that the first reference threshold has been exceeded, said second comparison step performs a comparison to determine whether the number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds the second reference threshold.

A computer-readable storage medium storing a printing control program executable by a computer that controls a printing apparatus for printing by causing a carriage, on which is mounted a printhead having a plurality of printing elements, to scan across a printing medium, the plurality of printing elements being divided into a plurality of blocks based upon entered print data, said storage medium having:

• code of a first comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of printing elements driven simultaneously in the blocks exceeds a first reference threshold;
• code of a second comparison step of performing a comparison to determine whether a number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds a second reference threshold of a number of times such drive is performed;
• and
• code of a generating step of adding reference pulse data and coffected pulse data to thereby generate driving pulses of coffected pulse width if a result of comparison at said first comparison step exceeds the first reference threshold and a result of comparison at said second comparison step exceeds the second reference threshold,
• wherein on a basis of the result of the comparison at said first comparison step to the effect that the first reference threshold has been exceeded, said second comparison step performs a comparison to determine whether the number of times continuous drive of the simultaneously driven printing elements has been performed exceeds the second reference threshold.