Patent ID: 7878117

Claim:
A stencil printing apparatus, comprising: a thermal head having a number of heat generators arranged in a main scanning direction which are directly brought into contact with a thermoplastic resin film of a master, the thermoplastic resin film subjected to melt perforation by regioselectively heating and driving each of the heat generators in response to an image signal, while relatively moving the master in a sub-scanning direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction, to obtain a perforated pattern corresponding to the image signal, the engraved master on which the perforated pattern is formed is wound around an outer peripheral surface of a print drum, ink is supplied from an inner periphery side of the print drum, an ink image corresponding to the image signal is formed on a medium to be printed by means of ink bleeding through the perforated pattern, and the ink image is completely fixed using active energy ray curable ink or emulsion ink as the ink; and first control means for controlling the thermal head so that perforated holes to be formed in the thermoplastic resin film by heating and driving with regard to odd bits corresponding to odd-numbered heat generators and even bits corresponding to even-numbered heat generators are formed in different lines running in the main scanning direction, and so that the perforated holes to be formed in the thermoplastic resin film by heating and driving with regard to the odd bits and the even bits adjacent to each other are not arranged adjacent to each other in the same line in the main scanning direction.