Patent ID: 7907290

Claim:
A method for operating a printer that prints using a receiver medium comprising a rolled portion having layers of rolled receiver medium leading to an outermost layer from which an unrolled portion of the receiver medium extends to a print engine; the method comprising the steps of: sensing a condition indicating that the receiver medium may have been contacted other than by a component of the printer or by a donor material applied by a print engine of the printer; measuring an aspect of the rolled portion of the receiver medium indicative of the circumferential length of the outermost layer of the rolled portion of the receiver medium; determining a circumferential length of the rolled portion of the receiver medium based upon the measured aspect of the rolled portion of the receiver medium; determining an exclusion length of the receiver medium based upon the determined circumferential length and a travel distance that is a representation of a length of the unrolled portion from the rolled portion to the print engine; and automatically advancing the receiver medium by the exclusion length so that a subsequent image printed by the printer will be printed using a portion of the receiver medium that was not directly subject to the possibility of such contact.