Patent ID: 8246262

Claim:
A media transportation control method for a print media processing apparatus for repeatedly reading image information and magnetic ink information from a plurality of slips by an image scanning unit and a magnetic ink reading unit, printing by a print head at a fixed printing position downstream from the magnetic ink reading unit and the image scanning unit, and consecutively conveying each of the plurality of slips by a transportation mechanism, wherein: the transportation mechanism conveys the print medium at a constant speed when feeding a slip through the print media processing apparatus to read the image information and magnetic ink information and print on the slip; origin O is the position of a trailing end of the slip at the position where both the magnetic ink reading unit and the image scanning unit have read to the trailing end of the conveyed slip; c represents a distance between an end of a printing area of the slip and the origin O; b represents a distance between a start of the printing area and the origin O, b being more distal of the origin O than c; b−c is the length of the printing area of the slip; d is a distance between a fixed printing position of the print head and the origin O; and the media transportation control method comprises steps of: operating at least one of the magnetic ink reading unit and the image scanning unit to determine a length of the printing area; operating the print head to print on the slip such that printing on the slip starts when b=d and stops when c=d; and operating the transportation mechanism in one of the following manners: if c is less than d, advancing the slip distance d−c after the trailing end of the slip reaches the origin O to allow the print head to finish printing on the slip such that c=d, then stopping slip transportation; and if c is greater than or equal to d, stopping slip transportation when the trailing end of the slip reaches the origin O.