Hewlett-packard Company

John C Santon

Thomas E McCue, Jr

Jeffrey T Hendricks

Raymond C Sherman

William Watts

Ivan F Crespo

Gary Hays

Steven Joseph Hand

Joseph H Bauman

Kenneth R Nielsen

Christen M Armbrust

Pankaj B Shah

A Z-fold print media handling system for printing banners and the like uses an inkjet printing mechanism without a tractor-feed. A series of stuttering stopping and starting steps generates varying static and dynamic frictional forces to separate the first sheet of a Z-fold stack from the remainder of the stack. Both conventional cut-sheet media and Z-fold media are fed using the same printing mechanism, which pulls the media toward a printzone through frictional engagement with a first surface of the media To prevent printhead crashes and smearing the image near the perforations joining the Z-fold sheets, the printhead to media spacing is increased for Z-fold media over the standard spacing used for cut-sheet media. A cam feature is incorporated into the media drive clutch disk to determine whether an operator has set a selector lever for cut-sheet or Z-fold printhead to media spacing.

Z-fold print media handling system

A Z-fold print media handling system for printing banners and the like uses an inkjet printing mechanism without a tractor-feed. A series of stuttering stopping and starting steps generates varying static and dynamic frictional forces to separate the first sheet of a Z-fold stack from the remainder of the stack. Both conventional cut-sheet media and Z-fold media are fed using the same printing mechanism, which pulls the media toward a printzone through frictional engagement with a first surface of the media. To prevent printhead crashes and smearing the image near the perforations joining the Z-fold sheets, the printhead to media spacing is increased for Z-fold media over the standard spacing used for cut-sheet media. A cam feature is incorporated into the media drive clutch disk to determine whether an operator has set a selector lever for cut-sheet or Z-fold printhead to media spacing.

A printer control method and apparatus are provided whereby print media feed and printhead carriage acceleration are overlapped in order to optimize the time which a printer spends preparing to print. The printhead carriage is accelerated at a time which has been determined to provide for concurrent completion of printhead carriage acceleration and media feed. This typically is accomplished by periodically previewing print data stored in memory for use in identifying a duration of time required to accelerate the printhead carriage to printing velocity and a duration of time required to advance the print medium. The difference between these times determines when to begin printhead carriage acceleration.

Method and apparatus for achieving increased printer throughput

Optimization of printer throughput is achieved through the use of a printhead carriage control method and a corresponding apparatus which directs acceleration of the printhead carriage based on the length of a future printhead carriage swath. According to the improved method, print data is periodically previewed to determine the length of a future swath, and the carriage is accelerated to an optimal printing velocity which is selected based on the determined swath length. The printer prints at the selected printing velocity, and then decelerates the carriage to complete the pass. During deceleration, the medium is advanced to its next position, and the print data is again previewed in order to determine the swath length for use in selecting the optimal printing velocity for the next carriage pass.

Printhead carriage control method and apparatus for achieving increased

A method of distributing a plurality of data files to a plurality of recipients including the steps of: placing encrypted copies of the data files to be distributed on a plurality of identical media and providing the recipients with media reading devices having data file decryption capability; logically arranging the data files into data file groups; in response to a recipient's request for access to selected file groups providing the recipient with a group access map indicative of the file groups to which access is requested; in further response to a recipient's request for access to selected file groups providing the recipient with a password to be used for access verification; completing an access verification operation using the group access map and the password and data indicative of the media being read and data indicative of the reading device being used; providing access to the data files in the file groups to which access is requested by use of the group access map; and decrypting the accessed data files.

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Brush Prairie, WA, United States of America

John C Santon