Thermal transfer printer

Abstract

There is a thermal transfer printer for recording dot information by use of heating energies. This printer comprises: a memory in which dot information indicative of a pattern to be recorded is stored; a thermal head to generate heating energies; and a controller to control the generation timing of the heating energies from the thermal head. When the ON-state dot information to be recorded which was stored in the memory does not exist in the first recording cycle and when the ON-state dot information to be recorded in the next second recording cycle exists, the controller controls the thermal head so as to generate the auxiliary heating energies in the first recording cycle prior to the dot information to be recorded. The auxiliary heating energies in the first recording cycle are generated at a timing near the start of the first recording cycle. The recording cycle is decided on the basis of the switching of the excitation phase of a motor to control the movement of the carriage on which the thermal head is mounted. With this printer, the high quality recording can be always performed for various kinds of print ribbons.