Printing apparatus, method of printing, and recording medium to actualize the method

Abstract

In a printer that enables creation of at least two variable-size dots, that is, a larger-size dot and a smaller-size dot, the technique of the present invention extracts pixels constituting the contour of a shape, for example, a letter or a figure, and allocates the smaller-size dot to the extracted contour pixels. Compared with creation of the larger-size dot, creation of the smaller-size dot in the contour pixels results in a smoother contour and effectively prevents the contour from being undesirably thickened. A favorable procedure to further improve the picture quality of a resulting printed image causes a position of creating a predetermined-size dot among the at least two variable-size dots to be shifted in a preset direction from a position of creating another dot among the at least two variable-size dots. After the extraction of the contour pixels, the procedure selects one of the at least two variable-size dots, which is to be created in each of the extracted contour pixels, based on information on a higher resolution than the printing resolution. The information on the higher resolution may be externally given in the form of image data or alternatively obtained by the image processing, such as interpolation.