Patent ID: 6837569

Claim:
A shingling method for front edge printing in a printing apparatus having an ink head and a line feeding motor feeding a sheet of printing paper in a paper advance direction, the method comprising: (a) setting a 1/n×100% shingling mode as a default of the printing apparatus to divide a nozzle portion of the ink head into nozzle sections 1 through n in the paper advance direction and a front edge region of the prining paper into first through n th front edge regions each having the same width as each nozzle section of the ink head in the paper advance direction; (b) rotating the line feeding motor by a single step corresponding to the width so that the first front edge region of the printing paper lines up beneath the nozzle section 1 of the ink head, to set a parameter m, which is an integer indicating the number of printing operations, to 1, and to perform printing on the first front edge region of the printing paper in the 1/n×100% shingling mode; (c) when the first front edge region of the printing paper lines up beneath the nozzle section 2 of the ink head, increasing the parameter m to 2 to perform printing on the first and second front edge regions of the printing paper in the 1/n×100% shingling mode; (d) when the first front edge region of the printing paper lines up beneath the nozzle section (s+2), where 1<s<n, increasing the parameter m to 3 to perform printing on the first through (s+2) th front edge regions of the printing paper in a s/n×100% shingling mode; (e) increasing the parameter m by 1 to perform printing on regions of the printing paper excluding m th trough (s+2) th front edge regions in the 1/n×100% shingling mode; and (f) repeating operation (e) until m=s+2, rotating the line feeding motor by the single step if m=s+2, and performing printing on regions of the printing paper beneath the nozzle sections n through 1 of the ink head in the 1/n×100% shingling mode.