Patent ID: 8014029

Claim:
A printing system for printing an image swath by swath according to image data that is provided to an image memory buffer in raster row format, the printing system comprising: a printhead including a plurality of columns of marking elements, each column being disposed along an array direction and being spaced apart by an offset distance; a carriage for moving the printhead in a carriage scan direction that is substantially perpendicular to the array direction; an encoder to provide input on the location of the carriage along the carriage scan direction; and a printer controller for reformatting the image data that is provided to the image memory buffer in raster format and controlling the marking elements to print a swath of the image as the printhead is moved by the carriage in the carriage scan direction, the printer controller comprising: a direct memory access controller portion for extracting data from the image memory buffer and rotating the image data from raster row format to column format; a plurality of stroke buffers for receiving the rotated image data in column format from the direct memory access controller; an encoder control portion for providing stroke firing strobe signals based on the input from the encoder; and a printhead driver control portion for generating rotated image data requests for the stroke buffers based on the input provided by the encoder and providing signals necessary to cause the marking elements to print according to the timing of the stroke firing strobe signals.