An image forming apparatus includes a drawing data creating unit and a controller. The drawing data creating unit creates drawing data from a print job. The controller automatically sets at least one of a first dropping method of performing discharge in a drawing area and a second dropping method of performing the discharge outside the drawing area as a preliminary discharge method in accordance with a type of component elements of the created drawing data, and performs preliminary discharge in accordance with the set preliminary discharge method.

The present invention embraces methods to automatically adjust print locations on a label on center-tracked printers. The methods are applicable for the initial out of the box setup and when changing media/print scripts after deployment of the printer. A novelty of the present invention is that no additional hardware may be required and the method is implemented with a relatively simple software algorithm. By utilizing a simple software algorithm and an analysis of the objects (barcode, text, shape, graphics, etc.) in the rendered image buffer, the centered position for the label can be calculated. The calculation of the centered position for the label is based on the print head width and the image width. An additional benefit with this invention is that the risk of printing outside the physical label (due to mechanical or label media roll variations) is minimized, since the image is printed centered.

An image processing apparatus decides a grid point coordinate on a lookup table corresponding to a predetermined color; calculates, based on association between a signal of the predetermined color in the uniform color space designated by a first color space information and the decided grid point coordinate, a first matrix for converting each signal in the uniform color space into a grid point coordinate; calculates, based on association between the signal of the predetermined color in the uniform color space designated by a second color space information and the decided grid point coordinate, a second matrix for converting each grid point coordinate into a signal in the uniform color space; and generates a lookup table for converting each grid point coordinate into a signal in the second color space by using the second matrix and the second color space information.

A printer control system for controlling an inkjet printer that prints an image having a predetermined thickness on a print medium includes: an image data creating/editing portion, configured for creating and editing an image data; and a printer control portion, configured for converting the image data sent from the image data creating/editing portion into a printing data and sending the printing data to the inkjet printer. When a portion for allowing the image to have a thickness in the image printed on the print medium is defined as a thick portion, the image data sent from the image data creating/editing portion to the printer control portion includes at least one of: a thickness information regarding a thickness of the thick portion, and a shape information regarding a shape of an end portion of the thick portion.

A printer driver enables appropriately executing real-time commands without causing operating errors even when print data is compressed for transmission to a printer. A driver causing a host computer that connects to a printer to execute a process, including causing the host computer to generate first commands executed by the printer in the order received, and second commands executed with priority over the first commands; generate print data including the first commands and send the print data to the printer; and execute a compression process converting data of the first commands contained in the print data to compressed data not containing a data train identical to a second command when generating the print data.

A printing apparatus and a printing method which can suppress lowering of reading accuracy of a two-dimensional code caused by shift of a printing position of an image are provided. For that purpose, in printing of the two-dimensional code by a plurality of times of scanning, in a case where a boundary between image regions crosses a square-shaped minimum information element (cell) of the two-dimensional code, a printing position of the two-dimensional code is moved so that the boundary between the image regions comes to an end portion of the cell.

A white-plate graphic erosion process is performed on print data subjected to a RIP process in the following procedure. First, an erosion candidate region which is a candidate for a region in which a white-plate graphic is eroded is determined. Then, a region to be applied with an ink of a color other than white is determined. Then, an application target region is determined. Then, a region other than a region obtained by an erosion process out of the application target region is determined to be an erosion allowed region. Then, a region included in the colored region and the erosion allowed region out of the erosion candidate region is determined to be an erosion target region. Finally, the values of data of pixels included in the erosion target region among white-plate data are rewritten such that the amount of white ink applied to the pixels is reduced.

A drawing data generation apparatus includes a first intermediate data generation section that generates first intermediate data from formation image data in which a formation image is indicated as a cluster of drawing components, a second intermediate data generation section that generates, from the first intermediate data, second intermediate data indicating drawing content of each line-shaped region of the formation image, and a drawing data generation section that generates, from the second intermediate data, drawing data indicating drawing content of each line-shaped region in a row of pixel data. The second intermediate data generation section selects, based on the first intermediate data, either a first scheme of arranging an overlap of the drawing components and generating the second intermediate data from the cluster of drawing components or a second scheme of expressing and integrating the drawing components as a cluster of the pixels and generating the second intermediate data.

A method for inkjet printing an image onto a curved region of an object surface includes applying a screen of ink drops to the region to create print dots, calculating the screen using a computer and generating and applying ink drops to the region using a print head having nozzles on a nozzle surface. The steps include a) providing data representing the print image, b) providing or calculating data representing the region, c) providing or calculating path data on paths for the print head or object, d) calculating application locations of ink drops using data from steps b) and c), e) calculating data based on tiling the region using data from step d), f) calibrating tone values using data from step e), g) screening the print image using data from step f), and h) printing the screened image onto the region. A device implementing the method is also provided.

A method is provided for surface-selective coating of a surface of an individual physical document, in particular a card-like document, with a liquid coating. The method includes: receiving or generating an actual image information by image sensors, which represents an actual image of the surface; and comparing the actual image information with reference image information, which represents a reference image of a reference surface corresponding to the surface, to determine, based on possible deviations between the actual image and the reference image, any deformation of the surface compared to the reference surface and to generate deformation information representing said deformation or alternatively the absence thereof. A coating device is then controlled based on coating information determined based on the deformation information and on geometry information that defines a target shape of a partial surface of the surface to be provided with the liquid coating.