Auto-adjusted print location on center-tracked printers

• US 10,163,044 B2
• Filed: 12/15/2016
• Issued: 12/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hand Held Products Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Datamax-O'Neil Corporation (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Celinder, Thomas, Unemyr, Erik, Berggren, Torben Kristofer
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Thomas D
• Application Number:
  US15/379,563
• Publication Number:
  US 20180174003A1
• Time in Patent Office: 740 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 3/4075 Tape printers; Label printers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1204 resulting in reduced user or operator actions, e.g. presetting, automatic actions, using hardware token storing data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1208 resulting in improved quality of the output result, e.g. print layout, colours, workflows, print preview
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1254 Automatic configuration, e.g. by driver
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/024 for printing on segmented surfaces, e.g. sticker sheets, label rolls
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/028 by thermal printers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1805 Receiving printer configuration commands
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1817 Buffers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1825 Adapting the print data to an output condition, e.g. object trapping trapping on rasterized data H04N1/58
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1868 for fitting to an output condition, e.g. paper colour or format

Abstract

The present invention embraces methods to automatically adjust print locations on a label on center-tracked printers. The methods are applicable for the initial out of the box setup and when changing media/print scripts after deployment of the printer. A novelty of the present invention is that no additional hardware may be required and the method is implemented with a relatively simple software algorithm. By utilizing a simple software algorithm and an analysis of the objects (barcode, text, shape, graphics, etc.) in the rendered image buffer, the centered position for the label can be calculated. The calculation of the centered position for the label is based on the print head width and the image width. An additional benefit with this invention is that the risk of printing outside the physical label (due to mechanical or label media roll variations) is minimized, since the image is printed centered.

Claims

1. A method of automatically configuring a print location on a center-tracked printer, comprising:

parsing, via the printer, print commands of incoming data comprising an image;

rendering, via the printer, an image buffer;

determining, via the printer, a location of leftmost black pixel of the image;

determining, via the printer, a location of rightmost black pixel of the image;

determining, via the printer, an image width, wherein the image width equals a distance between the rightmost black pixel and the leftmost black pixel;

in response to determining the image width, calculating, via the printer, a left margin by subtracting the image width from a width of a print head of the printer and dividing difference by two;

in response to calculating the left margin, adding, via the printer, the left margin to the image width to determine a centered image position for printing on a label;

sending, via the printer, the image and the centered image position to the print head for printing on the label; and

printing, via the print head and based upon the centered image position, the image centered on the label, wherein the printing is performed without the printer detecting or otherwise receiving input regarding the width of the label.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein, the print head comprises a thermal print head.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein, the center-track printer comprises a desktop clam shell printer or a mobile printer.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein, if the image is not to be centered on the label, manually adjusting the left margin to determine the print location.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein, the manual adjustment comprises modifying printer width settings to a specific value.

6. A method implemented on a printer comprising a print head, comprising:

parsing, via the printer, incoming data of an image and rendering an image buffer;

determining, via the printer, a left edge and a right edge of the image inside the image buffer;

calculating, via the printer, an image width of the image;

in response to calculating the image width, calculating, via the printer, a white space to be added to left of the image during printing using the image width and the width of the print head; and

printing, via the print head and based upon the calculated white space, the image centered on a label having the white space added to the left of the image;

wherein the printing of the image centered on the label is performed without the printer detecting or otherwise receiving input regarding the width of the label.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein, the determination of the left edge of the image inside the image buffer comprises determining a location of leftmost black pixel of the image.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein, the determination of the right edge of the image inside the image buffer comprises determining a location of rightmost black pixel of the image.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein, the image width equals a distance between a location of rightmost black pixel and a location of leftmost black pixel.

10. The method according to claim 6, wherein, the white space equals half of a difference between the width of the print head and the image width.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein, a centered image position on the label is determined by adding a value of the white space to the image width.

12. The method according to claim 6 wherein, the printer comprises a thermal print head.

13. A method implemented on a center-tracked printer, comprising:

parsing, via the printer, incoming data of an image and rendering an image buffer;

determining, via the printer, a left edge and a right edge of the image inside the image buffer;

calculating, via the printer, image width; and

if the image is to be centered on a label;

calculating, via the printer, a white space to be added to left of the image during printing based upon the image width and the width of a print head of the printer to determine a centered image position, and

printing, via the print head, the image centered on the label based upon the centered image position, wherein the printing of the image centered on the label is performed without the printer detecting or otherwise receiving input regarding the width of the label.

14. The method according to claim 13, comprising:

if the image is not to be centered on the label;

manually adjusting on the center-tracked printer the white space for a non-symmetrical label; and

printing the image on the non-symmetrical label.

15. The method according to claim 14, comprising, utilizing an existing configuration setting to manually shift the image left or right in order to determine a print location on the label.

16. The method according to claim 14, further comprising, manually modifying printer width settings to a specific value in order to center the image on the label.

17. The method according to claim 13, wherein, the determination of the left edge and the right edge of the image inside the image buffer comprises determining a location of leftmost black pixel of the image, and determining a location of rightmost black pixel of the image.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein, the image width equals a distance between the location of the rightmost black pixel and the location of the leftmost black pixel.

19. The method according to claim 13, wherein, the determination of the centered image position comprises:

calculating the white space by subtracting the image width from the width of the print head and dividing difference by two; and

adding the white space to a left side of the image width.

20. The method according to claim 19, further comprising, sending the image and the centered image position to the print head.