TAPE PRINTER

摘要

A tape printer that can form a label which has the size desired by the user and on which blank spaces and characters are arranged as desired by the user and can reduce the useless consumption of the tape. The printer is provided with an expansion printing mode in which a pseudolabel larger than the width of the tape can be produced by dividing the tape into parts in the longitudinal direction and the parts are joined together in the direction of the tape width. At the time of printing in this mode, the quality of the pseudolabel is improved by printing markers indicating the positions of the tape where it is divided in the longitudinal direction in addition to character strings. The printer has a function to automatically determine the lengths of blank spaces on the front and rear sides of a character string and a function to print a dot matrix pattern in an area wider than character strings. The printer also has a function to feed the tape from, for example, the printing head to the cutter without printing when a printing stop command is given during printing operation and a function to print a character string even when a tape feeding motor is accelerated or decelerated. Because of the above-mentioned functions, desired blank spaces, etc., can be obtained and useless consumption of tapes can be reduced. Moreover, the printing device has a function to take in, and print 1/M-size numerical characters the size of which is reduced to 1/M of the em-size so as to enhance the diversity of printing of numerical characters. <IMAGE>