Conventional tape printers generally include a keyboard, a display, and a printing mechanism. The tape printer may have a tape cassette for accommodating a tape-like printing medium having a width of 12 mm, 18 mm, or the like. Using this printing mechanism, the tape printer can make labels by printing letters, symbols, or other characters inputted via the keyboard onto the tape. Tape printers with additional editing functions have also been proposed.
One proposal for a tape printer introduced the idea of mounting a simple manual cutter in the tape printer near the exiting point of the printing tape for facilitating the cutting of printing tape at a desired position after the tape has been printed with characters. This tape printer has a simple construction that includes scissors having a movable blade and a fixed blade capable of easily and cleanly cutting the printing tape when the user pushes a cutting button.
However, tape printers having such a simple manual cutter allow the user to cut the printing tape at an arbitrary timing, regardless of whether a printing operation is being performed to drive a tape-feeding mechanism for feeding the tape and to control the thermal head for printing the tape. Hence, if a cutting operation is mistakenly executed while a printing operation is being performed, for example, the scissors of the manual cutter pinch the printing tape while the tape is still being formed and fed. Under these circumstances, the printing tape cannot be fed out of the tape printer and becomes tangled with and jammed in the driving system near the exit of the tape cassette, causing the tape cassette to malfunction.
Therefore, as disclosed in Japanese unexamined patent application publication No. HEI-7-132656, the inventors of the invention proposed a tape printer including a manual cutter for cutting a tape at a position downstream of the printing position through the operation of a cutting operation member after the tape has been printed by a printing head of printing means; cutter operation detecting means for detecting when the manual cutter begins a cutting operation; and print stopping means for receiving output from the cutter operation detecting means and stopping the printing operation by controlling means when the manual cutter begins a cutting operation.
However, since the conventional tape printer described above halts the printing means, which includes a tape-feeding mechanism, when the manual cutter begins a cutting operation, the scissors of the manual cutter are stopped after moving slightly due to the position and clearance of the detecting means. Therefore, when a wide tape is being used, the printing means including the tape-feeding mechanism is sometimes stopped after cutting has begun, causing the tape to jam. In other cases, the cutting operation is started when the user accidentally touches the manual cutter.