Patent ID: 7173739

Claim:
A printer comprising: a pagewidth inkjet printhead for printing bi-level dots of ink onto print media at a resolution of 800 to 1600 dpi; and at least one controller for controlling the pagewidth inkjet printhead, the, or each, controller comprising: a receiver for receiving compressed page data to be printed by the printhead; a first decoder configured to decode any compressed continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data at a resolution of up to 320 ppi in each plane; a second decoder configured to decode any compressed bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data at a resolution of 320 to 1600 dpi in each plane; a half-toner/compositor for creating a composite image by halftoning the continuous tone image planes decoded by the first decoder and compositing the bi-level image planes decoded by the second decoder over the halftoned continuous tone image planes; and a printhead driver arranged to output the composite image to the printhead.