Method of driving a thermal head.

摘要

A thermal head driving method in which serial picture data to be recorded on one line is inputted in two groups into a shift register (13) which produces parallel picture data corresponding to the input series picture data to drive heating elements (12) of a thermal head (11) by the parallel picture data. The method comprises the inputting serial picture data into the shift register (13) and a dummy data element derived from a reset signal is added in front of the serial picture data. The time when the first group of picture data has been set in the shift register is determined by measuring a fixed time interval after the dummy data element has been outputted from an output terminal (OUT) of the shift register (13). Input of data is then stopped and the heating elements (11) are driven to record the first group of picture data. The second group of picture data is then inputted into the shift register (13) in a similar manner and then the heating elements (11) are driven again.