Patent ID: 7092125

Claim:
A method of printing using a PC, having a low speed universal serial bus, and a micro-electromechanical inkjet printer in communication with said PC via the low speed universal serial bus, wherein the micro-electromechanical inkjet printer reproduces black text and graphics directly using bi-level black, and reproduces con-tone images and graphics using dithered bi-level CMYK, comprising the steps of: rendering, using the PC, con-tone images and graphics to a pixel level; rendering, using the PC, black text and graphics to a dot level; compressing, using the PC, the rendered con-tone images and graphics data and the rendered black text and graphics data separately, with the total resultant data being the rendered con-tone images and graphics data and the rendered black text and graphics data separately, with the total resultant data being ≦3 MB/page; transmitting the compressed data to the printer via said low speed universal serial bus; decompressing and dithering the transmitted compressed con-tone images and graphics data to produce bi-level CMYK; dithered data; decompressing the compressed black text and graphics bi-level data to produce bi-level black data; combining the dithered data with the bi-level black data to produce a bi-level CMYK page image; and printing said bi-level CMYK page image.