James E Cullen, 6938011 Muddy Neck Rd, Millville, DE 19970

4344713, Aug 17, 1982

Jul 9, 1980

6/167071

James H. Cullen - Bensalem PA

Sperry Corporation - New York NY

B41G 300

400 22

A character overprinting apparatus and method for overprinting in a laser non-impact printer is disclosed. Control bits are generated and assigned to data words transmitted from a host system. An underline control bit identifies whether the associated data word will require underlining and a data control bit identifies the data word as a character space or a character shape. An intermediate storage register stores a line of data words and associated control bits for overprinting. Stored data words and associated control bits from the intermediate storage register and data words and associated control bits from the host system are compared in an overprinting circuitry means to effect a selected merger of the data words and a selected modification of the control bits. The merger and modification are done in accordance with a pre-selected set of overprint rules. The merged data words and modified control bits are transmitted to the intermediate storage register, where they await further overprinting in the overprinting circuitry means or from where the data words are transmitted to a character generator memory in the laser printer to select character shapes stored therein for printing by the printing means of the laser printer.