Printer and methods of operation

摘要

This invention concerns a printer driver for a high performance color printer, such as a printer using a page-width drop-on-demand inkjet printhead. In another aspect it concerns a method of printing. The printer driver manages a two layer page buffer into which image objects are composited during page construction. The first layer contains contone data while the second layer contains bi-level data. The bi-level data is composited over the contone data by the printer. The printer driver operates such that where there is contone data composited with the contone layer that obscures bi-level data, the obscured bi-level data is removed from the bi-level layer and either discarded, or in the case where there is some interaction between the image represented by the obscuring contone data and the image represented by the obscured bi-level data, then the bi-level data is composited with the contone data before the obscuring contone data is composited with the contone layer.