Method and system for compensating for skew in an ink jet printer

摘要

A method and system for compensating for swath skew with respect to a perpendicular direction of carrier travel. An amount of swath skew is determined, and gross and/or fine skew adjustments are applied to reduce the swath skew to visually imperceptible limits. The method and system according to this invention can be carried out through software and/or hardware and thus eliminates the need for mechanical adjustment of an ink jet printer. The method and system operates by determining appropriate gross and fine skew adjustments upon insertion of a new printhead into a carrier. The fire order sequence of the fire groups in the printhead can be altered, and the swath data adjusted to compensate for swath skew caused by nozzle plate and/or printer skew with respect to the perpendicular direction of carrier travel.