Patent ID: 6425653
Filing Date: 2002-07-30
Classification: B41J,G06K

Abstract:
A method of printing a subject on a medium by use of a printing device including a printhead assembly, wherein the printhead assembly has a first linear array of marking elements and a second linear array of marking elements extending in a longitudinal direction of the medium, the subject consisting of textual and non-textual material, the method comprising steps of:loading into the printing device a set of pixels of the subject to be printed on the medium, the set of pixels including pixels of textual material and pixels of non-textual material; separating the pixels of the textual material from the pixels of the non-textual material; and printing pixels of at least a portion of the subject by passing the printhead assembly in a plurality of passes in a transverse direction of the medium perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, and offsetting successive ones of the passes of the printhead assembly along the medium by an offset in the longitudinal direction, wherein said offset does not exceed a dimension of the array of marking elements in the longitudinal direction; wherein, in said printing step, the non-textual material of the subject is printed in more than one of the plurality of the passes, and the textual material of the subject is printed during only one of the plurality of the passes, and each of said arrays of marking elements is capable of printing pixels of said textual material and pixels of said non-textual material.