Printing Apparatus Glyph Width Bounding Box Adjustment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional printing apparatuses using fixed-width fonts as substitutes often result in characters being printed in unnatural shapes due to excessive reduction when the glyph width of the fixed-width font is wider than the designated width, leading to poor print quality.
Innovation Solution
A printing apparatus with a controller that analyzes print data and adjusts character placement or scaling to ensure the glyph width or bounding box width of characters matches the designated width, using either fixed-width or proportional fonts as substitutes, to maintain natural character shapes during printing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a fixed-width font is used as a substitute font and the glyph width is reduced to fit the designated width, then the character fits within the designated glyph width, but the character shape becomes unnatural and distorted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter being controlled from the overall glyph width to the bounding box width of the character itself. By reducing only the bounding box width while maintaining the character's aspect ratio and proportions, the character fits within the designated glyph width without becoming distorted or unnatural in appearance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the glyph width into two components: the bounding box width (which is reduced to fit the designated width) and the character shape proportions (which are preserved to maintain natural appearance). This segmentation allows the character to conform to width constraints while retaining its visual integrity.
2Manufacturing precision
If the bounding box width of a character is reduced to fit within the designated glyph width, then the character conforms to the width constraint, but the character size is excessively reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent selectively reduces only the bounding box width parameter while preserving the character's aspect ratio and internal proportions. This selective parameter reduction allows the character to fit within the designated glyph width without excessive overall size reduction, maintaining both conformity and visual appearance.
3Ease of operation
If a fixed-width font is used for all characters, then character alignment is simplified, but characters with small inherent width (like 'I') appear excessively wide due to added blank spaces
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by treating each character's bounding box width individually rather than uniformly applying fixed-width font characteristics. By calculating and adjusting the bounding box width for each character based on its specific glyph width requirement, the patent maintains the simplicity of fixed-width alignment while ensuring each character's width is appropriate to its design.
Data Source
AI summary
In a printing apparatus provided with a controller configured to perform a RIP process, when a fixed-width font is determined to be used as a substitute font for a target character to be printed and when a glyph width of the target character is smaller than a fixed width, and a glyph width of the target character is larger than a width of a bounding box of the glyph of the target character expressed by the fixed-width font, the controller is configured to arrange, in the RIP process, the target character expressed by the fixed-width font such that the width of the bounding box is arranged within the glyph width.