Patent ID: 7646498

Claim:
A thermal printer comprising: a print head; a platen; a transport system for transporting media upon which labels are printed in conjunction with a print ribbon; a printer controller for imparting print data to said print head for printing said labels; an imager for imaging a printed label to create an image of the printed label; and, a read after print (RAP) controller for comparing the image from said imager to an image from data imparted to said print head and for performing label analysis and weighing blemishes against an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) qualification; and a processor in said RAP to take an action based on weighing a blemish in relationship to criticality as to a pre-established criteria of quality, wherein the criticality is a sum of functions dependent on a criticality value based on the ANSI qualification and a weighting based on an application of the image.