Patent ID: 7503641

Claim:
A printing apparatus for printing a substrate by depositing printing ink thereon, the apparatus comprising: a transport for incrementally advancing a substrate to predetermined printing positions disposed along a path of travel; a print head having a predetermined nozzle length L H and having N print nozzles therein; a carriage for passing the print head in a direction oriented substantially transversely to the path of travel so that on any one pass each of the N nozzles in the print head each addresses a plurality of print locations disposed along a scan line defined on the substrate; and a computer-implemented controller for actuating, on each pass across any given scan line, some subset P H of the N nozzles to deposit a printing medium on a predetermined plurality Q of selected print locations on that given scan line, wherein the number Q n of selected print locations onto which a printing medium is deposited on any given scan line by the n-th one of the N print nozzles varies from nozzle to nozzle along substantially the entire length L H of the print head.