Patent ID: 6986560

Claim:
A printer comprising: a pagewidth inkjet printhead for printing bi-level dots of ink onto print media at a resolution of 800 to 1600 dpi; and a plurality of controllers for controlling the pagewidth inkjet printhead, each controller comprising: a buffer for receiving and storing compressed page data to be printed by the printhead; a first decoder configured to decode any compressed contone image planes in the received compressed page data at a resolution of up to 320 ppi in each plane; a second decoder configured to decode any compressed bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data at a resolution of 320 to 1600 dpi in each plane; a half-toner/compositor for creating a composite image by halftoning the decoded contone image planes and compositing the decoded bi-level image planes over the halftoned contone image planes; and a printhead driver arranged to output the composite image to the printhead, wherein each controller is configured to send current compressed page data to the first and second decoders from the buffer whilst subsequent compressed page data is being received and stored in the buffer.