Thermal transfer printer and ink sheet cassette for use in same

摘要

A thermal transfer printer which can use both an ink sheet provided with a positioning mark to indicate the top position of a set of three color ink patches necessary for producing one image, and an ink sheet provided with no such positioning mark, without the need of switching an operation mode. The thermal transfer printer has an optical sensor which can equally detect a color change between 3rd and 1st color patches on the ink sheet provided with no positioning mark and a color change between a positioning mark and a 1st color patch on the ink sheet provided with the positioning mark. There is also disclosed an ink sheet cassette for use in the thermal transfer printer, the ink sheet cassette accommodating the ink sheet in which a positioning mark is coated with the same color(s) of ink as those for printing and information about the color sequence of the ink coated patches for printing is also recorded in the coated pattern of the positioning mark.