A printing device includes: a thermal head including heater elements arrayed into a line along an array direction intersecting a conveying direction of a printing medium; and controller that causes the thermal head to print onto the printing medium based on multiple line print data, each of the multiple line print data being data into which print data is divided along the array direction. The controller performs either of a first energization control to energize the heater elements in one line cycle for printing based on a single line print data among the multiple line print data and a second energization control to energize the heater elements so that a non-energization period in which the heater elements are not energized is included in the one line cycle, depending on a temperature of the thermal head.

A thermal printer includes heating elements that generate heat according to amounts of applied energy, an energy applier that applies energy to the heating elements, a memory that stores a gradation table where energy levels to be applied to the heating elements are set for gradation levels based on a relationship between dot area ratios of an image and the amounts of energy applied to the heating elements, and a controller that transfers control data multiple times to the energy applier based on the gradation table to control the amounts of energy to be applied by the energy applier to the heating elements, each of the control data corresponding to different amounts of energy.

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.

The disclosure discloses a printer includes a controller. The controller performs a first feed control process, a temperature-difference calculation process, and a first printing speed determination process. In the first feed control process, in a state where an energizing device does not perform energization to the heating element, the driving device is controlled to perform non-energization feeding while causing a thermal head to contact a print-receiving medium. In the temperature-difference calculation process, during execution of the non-energization feeding, a first deviation between two of the head temperatures which are respectively detected by the first temperature detecting device at different timings is calculated. In the first printing speed determination process, the printing speed is determined on the basis of the first deviation.

A printer includes a controller configured to perform a first printing process to control a thermal head to print a first image with a first density, store first print data for identifying the first image and first density data for identifying the first density into a first memory device attached to an attachment holder, when a second memory device storing second print data and second density data is attached to the attachment holder, acquire from the second memory device the second print data and the second density data stored into the second memory device by another printer, and perform a second printing process to control the thermal head to print a second image with a second density, the second image being identified based on the acquired second print data, the second density being identified based on the acquired second density data.

A printer includes a processor and a thermal head having a plurality of heating elements to print an image having a plurality of print lines on a printing medium on the basis of printing data, wherein in an initial control period, for any printing data, the processor causes the thermal head to perform a division printing for each of the print lines that are to be printed in the control period, the division printing being such that for each print line to be printed, the plurality of heating elements are divided into a plurality of subgroups and the respective subgroups of the heating elements are activated in a time-divided manner, and wherein in a normal period after the control period, the processor causes the thermal head performs a non-division printing for at least some of the print lines that are to be printed in the normal period.

A printing device comprises: a print head configured to print a plurality of print lines on a medium to be printed, the medium being conveyed in a conveying direction; and a processor configured to control the print head. The processor is configured to: control the print head to print each of the plurality of print lines by a number of printing times which is once or a plurality of times by time division according to print data for printing each of the plurality of print lines; and in printing of a first print line and a second print line to be printed after the first print line of the plurality of print lines by the print head, the second print line being adjacent to the first print line along the conveying direction, control the print head to perform, after printing the first print line before printing the second print line, complementary printing that complements missing print estimated to occur between the first print line and the second print line in a case where a number of the printing times in the first print line and a number of the printing times in the second print line are set to different values from each other, and a number of the printing times is set to two or more.

A thermal printer includes: a plurality of heat elements that are to be heated by applying an electrical power; a printing controller that applies a first electrical power to heat elements not to be used for printing, the first electrical power depending on the number of heat elements not to be used for printing among the plurality of heat elements; and a thermal head that prints using the plurality of heat elements.

A method, apparatus, and computer program product are described herein for controlling a printing device. In an example embodiment, a print line is divided into frames and frame dot states are determined based on neighboring frame dot states. Maximum motor speeds of the printing device may be adjusted so that actual motor speeds change gradually during printing. The print engine may detect a printhead type by sending a signal to the printhead and receiving a response.

A printing device includes:

a thermal head including heater elements arrayed into a line along an array direction intersecting a conveying direction of a printing medium; and

controller that causes the thermal head to print onto the printing medium based on multiple line print data, each of the multiple line print data being data into which print data is divided along the array direction.

The controller performs either of a first energization control to energize the heater elements in one line cycle for printing based on a single line print data among the multiple line print data and a second energization control to energize the heater elements so that a non-energization period in which the heater elements are not energized is included in the one line cycle, depending on a temperature of the thermal head.