Patent ID: 7139096

Claim:
A printing system, which uses a print head having a plurality of print elements and performs a plurality of scans of the print head over a same area so as to make correspondence of different print elements of the print head to the same area from one of the plurality of scans to another scan, for printing a plurality of dot patterns, the printing system comprising: a code table used for convening respective data representative of each one of a plurality of input colors to a respective one of the plurality of representative color codes; and pattern generation means for generating a respective one of the dot patterns corresponding to each one of the input colors by convening each one of the representative color codes associated with a respective one of the input colors to a corresponding dot pattern; wherein the dot pattern generation means includes a plurality of pattern tables each corresponding to a respective one of the plurality of scans, each one of the pattern tables storing the dot pattern that is of a block of 4×4 matrix, the dot pattern generation means generates the dot pattern to be printed in each of the plurality of scans based on the plurality of pattern tables in which one pattern table for one scan stores the dot pattern corresponding to one of the color codes and each of remaining tables stores the dot patterns having no dots, if the number of dots in the combined blocks of plurality of scans is equal to or less than a predetermined number, and the dot pattern generation means generates the dot pattern to be printed in each of the plurality of scans, a dot pattern formed by combining the dot patterns corresponding to the plurality of scans has a dot pattern in which dot density in a direction different from a direction of the scan is greater than that in the scan direction, if the number of dots in the blocks of plurality of scans is greater than the predetermined number.