A method for calibrating a printer.

摘要

A method for calibrating a printer (10) to print data beginning at a specified distance from the reference edge (14a) of a document (14). Several test documents are moved through a printer and a test symbol (12a) is printed on each of them with a preselected set of heating elements (62) from a dot matrix thermal print member (56). The test documents (12a) are then processed through the same printer whereupon a sensor (64) detects the reference edge (14a) of the document (14) and the test symbol (12a). A master controller (66) then determines a test symbol distance between the reference edge and the midpoint of the test symbol for each test document. In order to calibrate the printer to account for the calibration distance so that the printer prints data beginning at substantially the specified distance from the reference edge of the document, the master controller (66) utilizes a stepping motor (22) to make coarse calibration adjustments by advancing the document in full and/or half steps. Fine calibration adjustments are made by selectively energizing heating elements (62) of the thermal print member (56). <IMAGE>