EP0893267A1 - Thermal printing ribbon for office color printer - Google Patents

Abstract

The ribbon consists of a polyethylene film which supports sets of three primary coloured fields made from layers of pigmented resin. A print format (8) may be divided into two strips (9,9') or any other submultiple and the widths of the coloured fields are adjusted accordingly. If each strip requires printing it is submitted to a succession of printing passes (10-12) and (10'-12'). If not, then half the ribbon is saved. Where both strips require printing the coloured ribbon fields are of slightly different width so that an overlap is caused and there is smooth colour merging.

Description

The invention relates to the color printing of a support sheet. thermal transfer, thermal sublimation or other printing thermal printing modes.

Color thermal printers use as printing consumable a ribbon supporting a succession of sets of coloring ranges.

Each set of ranges usually includes three ranges successive colors of cyan, magenta and yellow, each range having the dimensions of a sheet to print.

To print a color image on a page of a sheet support, we apply successively the three ranges of a set of ranges on the page by activating the heating elements of a print head. We thus reconstruct the color image by superimposing the cyan colors, magenta and yellow.

Printing a page therefore systematically consumes three coloring areas regardless of the size of the image to be printed, this which results in a waste of ribbon, for example when you do not print just a few lines from the page.

The invention aims to regulate the consumption of coloring tape depending on the size of the image to be printed while avoiding defects printing.

To this end, the invention relates to a printing ribbon printer for office machine printer supporting succession of coloring areas intended to print an image in au minus one print area on a print media sheet of determined format, characterized by the fact that the formats of the tracks coloring are substantially sub-multiples of the sheet format print medium but significantly different from each other.

Thanks to this, we smooth the connection faults between the zones successively printed.

Advantageously, the formats of the successive coloring ranges intended for printing a printing area are decreasing.

• la figure 1 représente une vue de dessus du ruban d'impression ;
• la figure 2 représente un schéma du mouvement d'une feuille support d'impression en cours d'impression et
• la figure 3 représente une vue en coupe d'une liaison entre deux zones d'impression.

The invention will be better understood using the following description of a particular embodiment of the printing ribbon of the invention and of a particular embodiment of the color thermal printing process with reference to the accompanying drawing on which :

• Figure 1 shows a top view of the printing ribbon;
• FIG. 2 represents a diagram of the movement of a print support sheet during printing and
• Figure 3 shows a sectional view of a connection between two printing areas.

The printing ribbon 1 which will now be described is intended to be used as a printing consumable in a color thermal transfer printer for machine office.

The tape 1 here comprises a film 2 of polyethylene supporting a succession of coloring areas 3 - 7 of different colors consisting of resin layers containing pigments of coloring.

Ribbon 1 is subdivided into a plurality of sets of tracks 4 - 6 each intended for printing a printing area of a support sheet and comprising a plurality of successive ranges of different colors, in the species three respective color ranges cyan, magenta and yellow.

The ribbon being intended for printing support sheets printing format, in this case standard A4 format (21 cm x 29.7 cm), the coloring areas here have a format substantially equal to half of the standard A4 format, i.e. in A5 format (21 x 14.85 cm), the short sides of the coloring areas extending parallel to the edges of the ribbon. However, the widths of the coloring areas 4 - 6 of each set of ranges, intended to print a printing area of a print media sheet, are noticeably different from each others and here decreasing. In other words, the formats of the tracks successive dyes of each set of ranges are substantially submultiples of the format of the sheet to be printed, but substantially different from each other and decreasing. Thanks to this, we can smooth the connections between the printing areas as will be explained by the after.

The corresponding color thermal printing process substantially to the operation of the printer using the ribbon described above, will now be described.

In order to print an image spanning the entire surface of a print support sheet 8, here the sheet is divided into two strips 9, 9 'each in A5 format.

We determine among these bands 9, 9 'the band or bands in which the image to be printed extends. In the example particular of the description, the image extending over the entire support sheet 8, the two strips 9, 9 ′ of the sheet 8 are strips printing.

Each printing strip 9 (9 ') is then submitted, one after another, in a succession of printing passes 10, 11, 12 (10 ', 11 ', 12'). For each printing pass, we train the band 9 (9 ') in a round trip and we print a color during the movement go by applying a coloring area on the strip and activating heating elements of a print head.

We then print successively layers of cyan colors, magenta and yellow 13, 14, 15 on one of the printing bands and then on the other 9 ', thus consuming six coloring areas in A5 format, i.e. the equivalent of three A4 size coloring areas.

With reference to FIG. 3, it will be emphasized that the widths of the successive coloring areas of each set of areas being substantially different from each other and decreasing, the connections 13 ', 14', 15 ' between two layers of the same color 13, 14, 15 belonging to two adjacent printing strips are offset from each other. Thus, the connection between the two printing areas 9, 9 ′ is smoothed out. avoiding creating a link fault such as a white line.

In case the image spans a single band only the printing strip is subjected to the three passes successive printing cycles to print cyan, magenta and yellow. We then only consume three color zones substantially at A5 format.

In the description which has just been made, we have subdivided the sheet in two strips 9, 9 ', one could obviously consider the subdivide into a plurality of other areas of format equal to a submultiple the format of the sheet to be printed. In this case, the formats of successive coloring ranges would be substantially equal to the format of the printing areas, in other words a sub-multiple of the format of the sheet to print, but noticeably different from each other.

Instead of decreasing, the formats of the coloring areas successive, intended to print a printing area, could be croissants.

Finally, it will be emphasized that the invention also applies to printing by thermal sublimation or by any other mode thermal printing.

Claims (3)

Thermal printing ribbon for machine printer of office supporting a succession of coloring areas (3 - 7) intended to print an image in at least one printing area on a printing medium sheet of determined size, characterized by the fact that the formats of the coloring areas (3 - 7) are substantially submultiples the format of the print media sheet but substantially different from each other. The printing ribbon of claim 1, wherein the formats of successive coloring areas (3 - 7) intended to print a printing area are decreasing. The printing ribbon of claim 1, wherein the formats of successive coloring areas intended to print an area are increasing.

Images