Patent ID: 8393709

Claim:
In a page-width inkjet printer including a plurality of jetting modules that are staggered in the page-width direction such that adjacent jetting modules partially overlap in an overlap region, each of the plurality of jetting modules including a plurality of nozzles wherein some of the nozzles are nominally adjacent and aligned in the overlap region and nominally designated either as printing nozzles or nonprinting nozzles, a method of reducing stitch error resulting from horizontal misalignment of the jetting modules comprising the steps of: determining the horizontal misalignment of the jetting modules, and whether any stitch error resulting from said horizontal misalignment produces a white line artifact or a dark line artifact at a stitch juncture within the overlap region of adjacent jetting modules; for a misalignment where the artifact is a white line, duplicating existing data from a printing nozzle in the overlap region of one of the adjacent jetting modules wherein the white line artifact occurs, and applying a proportion of the duplicated data to at least one of the nonprinting nozzles in the overlap region of the other adjacent jetting module; and for a misalignment where the artifact is a dark line, shifting the data through one of the adjacent jetting modules in the page-width direction to convert at least one printing nozzle to an additional nonprinting nozzle in the overlap region of the jetting module wherein the dark line artifact occurs, and then duplicating existing data from a printing nozzle in the overlap region of the other adjacent jetting module and applying a proportion of the duplicated data to the additional nonprinting nozzle in the overlap region; wherein the method controls which jetting module prints data in the overlap region and whether any shifting of data needs to occur.