The present disclosure provides a new and innovative medical wristband that can be thermally printed with patient identification features and that also includes location-tracking features. The provided medical wristband includes a wristband component and a separate closure component. The wristband component may be thermally printed using conventional thermal printers because it is not physically attached to the location tracker that would otherwise make the medical wristband too thick for conventional thermal printers. The wristband component may be printed with patient identification information and/or a scannable code accessing patient identification information. The closure component has a location tracker coupled to it, such as a Bluetooth beacon. In one example, the location tracker is welded to the closure component. Accordingly, a patient may wear a single thermally printed wristband that provides medical professionals with both patient identification features and location tracking features.

A printing device includes: a conveying part configured to convey a printing medium in a conveying direction; a printing part configured to print on the printing medium at a print timing; a cutting part provided downstream of the printing part in the conveying direction and configured to cut the printing medium, which has been conveyed by the conveying part, at a cut timing after the printing part prints on the printing medium; and the controller configured to print, by controlling the printing part, a first scale and a second scale on the printing medium. At least a portion of the printed first scale and at least a portion of the printed second scale are arranged at the same position in the conveying direction. The printed first scale and the printed second scale are arranged at different positions in an orthogonal direction orthogonal to the conveying direction.

In some examples, simultaneous color development for thermally activated print media may include ascertaining an input image that is to be printed using a thermal printhead. Colors that are to be printed may be determined for a plurality of specified pixels of the input image. A plurality of frequencies may be clustered to print each color of the determined colors. Based on the clustered plurality of frequencies, operation of a printhead that is to print the plurality of specified pixels may be controlled.

A method for printing includes analyzing print quality requirements for a printing area; adjusting settings for heater elements (e.g., energy and/or firing durations) of strobe lines based on the requirements analysis; and providing a plurality of individual strobe signals to the strobe lines. The strobe signals can be transmitted simultaneously, for example with a field-programmable gate array. Analyzing print quality requirements can include separating the printing area into one or more areas of interest, such as rows and/or columns. For each area of interest individual print quality settings (e.g., darkness, contrast, and/or media sensitivity) may be selected.

In some examples, continuous frequency based print pipeline generation may include ascertaining an input image that is to be printed. For a specified pixel of the input image, a first frequency and a second frequency that respectively correspond to first and second colors may be determined. Based on the first frequency and the second frequency, an intermediate frequency that is to be generated to produce an intermediate color relative to the first and second colors may be determined. The intermediate frequency may be converted to discrete pulses. Operation of a printhead that is to print the specified pixel may be controlled based on the discrete pulses.

A printer includes: a first connector to be used to input electric power supplied from an outside; a second connector to which a communication terminal is to be connected, and which is to be used to output at least a part of the electric power to the connected communication terminal; a printing control unit configured to control operation of a printing unit configured to perform printing on recording paper; and an adjustment unit configured to adjust a maximum amount of the electric power to be output from the second connector, of the electric power supplied from the outside, to a first amount of power when the printing unit is not under a printing operation, and adjust the maximum amount of the electric power to be output from the second connector to a second amount of power when the printing unit is under the printing operation, the second amount of power being smaller than the first amount of power.

In some examples, luminance-biased sharpening for thermal media printing may include converting an input image to a grayscale luminance representation. For each pixel of a plurality of specified pixels of the converted input image, a sharpening lightness value may be determined. Further, a ratio of the sharpening lightness value to a corresponding original lightness value may be determined. A resulting sharpened pixel may be determined by applying a corresponding value of the determined ratio to each of the specified pixels. A dark correction factor may be applied to the resulting sharpened pixels that are darkened and a light correction factor may be applied to the resulting sharpened pixels that are lightened. Based on application of the dark correction factor and the light correction factor, a sharpened output image corresponding to the input image may be generated.

A method for printing includes analyzing print quality requirements for a printing area; adjusting settings for heater elements (e.g., energy and/or firing durations) of strobe lines based on the requirements analysis; and providing a plurality of individual strobe signals to the strobe lines. The strobe signals can be transmitted simultaneously, for example with a field-programmable gate array. Analyzing print quality requirements can include separating the printing area into one or more areas of interest, such as rows and/or columns. For each area of interest individual print quality settings (e.g., darkness, contrast, and/or media sensitivity) may be selected.

Whether there exists a side area image within side areas of the recording medium is determined. When it is determined that there exists no image within the side areas, a command is transmitted to a printer. The command causes a printer to start conveying of the recording medium at an earlier timing. The side areas of the recording medium are difficult to be heated by a heater arranged at a central portion of a fixing roller. Therefore, in order to heat the side areas, a long time for heating by the heater is necessary. When there is no image within the side areas, the heating time is shortened. Thereby, it is possible to start conveying the recording medium at an early timing, and a time period for completing a printing operation can be shortened.

There is provided a printer including: a storage that stores transmission discrimination format information and information specification format information; a printing executor that performs printing based on print data received from a POS terminal; and a controller that transmits print text data, in which information adapted to information specification format indicated by information specification format information among information included in the print text data is converted or deleted, to a control server when a format of the print text data based on the print data received from the POS terminal is adapted to a transmission discrimination format indicated by the transmission discrimination format information.