METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING INK CONSUMPTION WHEN PRINTING Russian patent published in 2010 - IPC G06K15/12 H04N1/407 

FIELD: information technology.

SUBSTANCE: system for reducing ink consumption when printing by rasterising font includes a font rasteriser which can rasterise a character from a description contained in the font into a bitmap based on current font parametres such as the transformation matrix and text effects; a character code, font and font parametres are transmitted to the input of the rasteriser. The bitmap is transmitted to a module for re-colouring fragments to the background colour and dimensions of the bitmap are transmitted to a random number generator, the module for re-colouring fragments to the background colour which can re-colour small fragments to the background colour in random coordinates of the bitmap of the character in accordance with the disclosed method; a bulk map of the character is transmitted to the input of the module from the font rasteriser, as well as random coordinates inn the bitmap of the character from the random number generator, masks M1 and M2 defined by print resolution, parametre N which gives the degree of saving ink. The module for re-colouring fragments can send a request for receiving random coordinates to the random number generator; the bitmap with the re-coloured fragments of the background is transmitted to font cache, the font cache can realise functions of random access memory for storing bitmaps of characters rasterised for the printed page or the entire printing task.

EFFECT: reduced consumption of ink with output of text or image onto a printer.

8 cl, 6 dwg