A thermal printer includes a conveyance unit, a thermal head with heating elements arranged in a line crossing a conveyance direction of a thermal paper, and a controller that generates print dot data for dots to be printed by the thermal head and controls the conveyance unit and thermal head according to the print dot data. The controller determines whether the total number of dots to be printed in a predetermined number of consecutive lines of the print dot data is greater than a threshold number and, when the total number of dots is greater than the threshold number, control the conveyance unit to convey the thermal paper after the printing of the print dot data by a predetermined amount along the conveyance direction.

An interface circuit includes an operation controller that controls an operation state of the interface circuit; a converter that outputs divided print data signals, each divided print data signal of the divided print data signals having a predetermined bit width; a storage that stores the divided print data signals. The interface circuit includes a data controller that controls an order of writing of the divided print data signals into the storage and reading of the divided print data signals from the storage; a logical arithmetic module that performs logical arithmetic operations based on the divided print data signal and a history pulse signal and outputs a history print data signal that defines heat generating time periods of dots corresponding to print lines to be printed; and a conversion clock synchronizer that outputs the history print data signal in synchronization with a driving signal for a thermal head.

An image forming apparatus includes: a thermal head including a plurality of heating elements; and a controller configured to execute a first one-line printing process to perform printing for one line. The first one-line printing process includes: dividing selected R heating elements into M blocks consisting of a 1-st block to an M-th block such that the M blocks include at least one high current block consisting of p heating elements and at least one low current block consisting of q heating elements; and energizing the M blocks at different timings. In a case where the 1-st block is the high current block, at least one block of the M blocks excluding the M-th block is the low current block. In a case where the 1-st block is the low current block, at least one block of the M blocks excluding the M-th block is the high current block.

An apparatus is configured to heat a print medium in which a plurality of color development layers that develop colors in accordance with heating are stacked in correspondence with a plurality of colors so as to form an image on the medium by causing a desired color development layer in the plurality of color development layers to independently develop the color. The apparatus includes a printhead, an input unit configured to receive a print job, a generation unit configured to generate image data and cut information for specifying a cut position, a second generation unit configured to generate first and second pulses for driving the print head, and a drive unit configured to drive the print head to form an image on the medium and apply heat beyond a melting point to melt the medium so as to cut the medium.

An image forming apparatus includes a printhead configured to add energy to an image material; and a control unit configured to output, based on image data, a signal pattern for controlling energy to be added by the printhead to the image material including a plurality of color development layers that have different color development characteristic and develop colors in accordance with the added energy. When causing at least two of the plurality of color development layers to develop colors, the control unit generates, based on at least two signal patterns generated to cause the at least two color development layers to develop colors, a signal pattern of an OR of the at least two signal patterns and outputs the signal pattern.

An image forming apparatus includes a printhead configured to add energy to an image material; and a control unit configured to output, based on image data, a signal pattern for controlling energy to be added by the printhead to the image material including a plurality of color development layers that have different color development characteristic and develop colors in accordance with the added energy. When causing at least two of the plurality of color development layers to develop colors, the control unit generates, based on at least two signal patterns generated to cause the at least two color development layers to develop colors, a signal pattern of an OR of the at least two signal patterns and outputs the signal pattern.

A printing device includes a thermal printhead with a plurality of print elements. A controller is configured to identify an out of specification status of at least one print element, wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether printing of a specific print field requires use of the print element having the out of specification status and, if so, to determine whether a print location of the specific print field can be shifted such that the print element having out of specification status will be one of (i) aligned with a gap in the specific print field or (ii) offset to one side of the specific print field. A weighing scale incorporating the printing device is also provided.

A printing device includes a thermal printhead with a plurality of print elements. A controller is configured to identify an out of specification status of at least one print element, wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether printing of a specific print field requires use of the print element having the out of specification status and, if so, to determine whether a print location of the specific print field can be shifted such that the print element having out of specification status will be one of (i) aligned with a gap in the specific print field or (ii) offset to one side of the specific print field. A weighing scale incorporating the printing device is also provided.

In a print data editing device, controller is configured to perform: editing; and converting. The editing edits print data representing an input image such that when sub-dots constituting the input image are compared by units of columns before and after performing the editing, a coincidence is maximized when an image of each column in the input image after the editing is the same position as an image of the corresponding column in the input image before the editing or is shifted by a corresponding shift amount in a sub-scanning direction relative to the image of the corresponding column in the input image before the editing. The converting includes: determining one or more sub-dot as a conversion sub-dot; and editing the print data such that the print data indicates OFF for the one or more sub-dots determined as the conversion sub-dot.

A printing device is configured to print a multi-layer thermal printing medium. The printing device includes a thermal head and a controller. The thermal head has a heat generating elements configured to form images on a heat sensitive multi-layer. The controller is configured to perform detecting whether a viewing direction of the heat sensitive multi-layer is a thickness direction to view from a second surface toward a first surface or a direction opposite the thickness direction to view from the first surface toward the second surface. The controller is configured to further perform creating print data to be applied to each of the heat generating elements. The created print data is such that color development states of a first color and a second color according to the detected viewing direction are differentiated from color development states of the first color and the second color according to an undetected viewing direction.