An improved method and apparatus for control­ling an electrostatic plotter is disclosed which results in an increased speed for the plotter. This speed is achieved by dividing the picture to be printed into frames and processing the individual frames in parallel with separate controllers for each frame. The styli on the electrostatic printer's head will accordingly be divided into the separate frames. The raster data pro­duced by each of the controllers is combined to form the entire picture and is forwarded to the plotter.