THERMAL TRANSFER PRINTER AND ITS PRINTING METHOD

PURPOSE: To provide a thermal transfer printer and a printing method therefor capable of improving image quality by compensating image deterioration due to a common drop and a temperature characteristic of a thermal print head(TPH) by differentiating heating periods for the TPH. CONSTITUTION: This printer comprises a memory 152 for dot number calculating and a controller 153 for dot number calculating that inputs image data by a unit of line and the number of dots which are simultaneously heated according to the gradation, a thermistor for sensing a temperature of a thermal print head and a correcting section 150 that controls the thermal print head such that pulse widths of strobe signals are varied in accordance with the detected number of dots simultaneously heated according to the gradation and the temperature of the thermal print head, thereby heating the thermal print head at a constant energy according to the gradation.