Abstract: A thermal transfer printing apparatus has a thermal head comprised of a plurality of heating members aligned in line, each of the heating members transferring an ink to printing paper upon heating so as to form one dot, the thermal head moving relative to the printing paper and defining a pixel using m.times.n printing dots (m, n: positive integers). This apparatus further has multilevel dot pattern generating means for storing several binary dot patterns having predetermined dots of the m.times.

Abstract: A thermal transfer color printer is disclosed for printing color images on individual sheets of paper. One sheet of paper at a time is removed from a stack of paper stored in a cassette and this sheet is transported by a reversible platen roller in a first or forward direction at a first predetermined rate. While the sheet of paper is gripped between the reversible platen roller and one or more pinch rollers, slack is removed by a slack removing device. A multicolored ink ribbon with successively arranged color segments also is transported in the first direction at the same predetermined rate. A thermal printhead presses against the reversible platen roller to press the ink ribbon and sheet of paper together as they move in the first direction. Energization of the thermal elements on the thermal printhead by color component signals corresponding to the current color of the ink ribbon causes the particular current color to be thermally and selectively transferred to the sheet of paper.

Abstract: A recording system has a thermal head having a plurality of thermal heating resistive elements aligned in line and a drive circuit for selectively energizing the thermal heating resistive elements to record image data for one line. The recording system also has a calculator for calculating supply energy data supplied to each resistive element for recording one-line image data in accordance with the one-line image data and the storage energy stored in each of the resistive elements after the immediately preceding line is recorded. A control circuit controls the supply energy supplied to each resistive element through drive circuits in response to the supply energy data.