Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

Yasuyo Ooshio

Takashi Ito

Kazuhisa Hirono

Hideo Ueno

Minako Ishida

Shiro Yamada

Yasushi Kawakami

Kazuaki Koie

Sachiyo Nakahigashi

Kengo Omura

Kazuko Ishida

After initialization (S1), the cassette signal is retrieved (S2). Then the tape width of the tape in the tape cassette mounted in the tape printer is determined by tape TB1 (S4). The width of the image display zone is calculated using the tape width and using the table TB5 (S7). The data of standard format information is stored in the start address of the text memory (S8). A text input screen is displayed set with the image display zone corresponding to the tape width calculated in S2 for the display. A cursor is also displayed having the size of the display character size, which was determined based on the print character size, which has been calculated using the tape width, the number of lines '1,' and the table TB3. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a grasp of the relation between tape width and the situation at which characters will be printed.

Tape printer having a display

Operation of a double-line printing key, and selection of an upper printing line or a lower printing line causes the indication of subsequent input character data to follow either an upper printing line mark or a lower printing line mark, for example, on an LCD. When a printing key is operated, the character data following the upper printing line mark are stored in a first arrangement memory, and the data following the lower printing line mark are stored in a second arrangement memory. When the number of characters to be printed in the upper line is different from the number of characters to be printed in the lower line, space data are inserted into the printing line (upper or lower) which has the lesser number of characters so that the length of the upper printing line and the lower printing line become the same. Then, characters are printed on the upper and lower lines of the printing tape based on the data stored in the first and the second arrangement memories so that characters in the lower printing line are directly below characters in the upper printing line.

Tape printing device for printing a plurality of printing lines across

A tape printer automatically expands an input character string up to the length of a desired printing range. Operating a fixed length key after input of printing data causes an indication, for example, 'PRINTING LENGTH: 10' to appear. The 'PRINTING LENGTH' indication is varied by, for example, rotating a character selecting dial. When a printing key is operated, an actually printable dot column count is determined from the selected printing length. The dot column count minus the total character width (dot column count required to print all desired characters) provides a margin space YS. If the margin space is equal to or greater than the total character spacing (i.e., the number of inter-character positions), a new margin space YS is determined, and the character spacing value is incremented by one dot column. The characters are then printed on the printing tape using the spacing value thus obtained.

Tape printer having spacing function

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Yasuyo Ooshio