US Patent 7525677 Inkjet printer having image decoding controller

An inkjet printer is provided having a printhead and a controller for controlling the print head. The controller has an interface for receiving compressed page data, a first decoder for decoding continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data, a second decoder for decoding bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data, a half-toner for dithering separate color planes of the decoded continuous tone image planes which are output by the first decoder to separate buffers of the half-toner and a compositor for compositing the decoded bi-level image planes output by the second decoder with the dithered image planes, and a print head interface for outputting the composite to the print head.