This invention relates to printing, and discloses a method and apparatus for variable data printing. The method comprises: obtaining a current page of a file to be printed; performing a rasterization process on the current page to obtain a current page dot matrix; determining a reference page for the current page and obtaining a reference page dot matrix corresponding to the reference page; dividing the reference page dot matrix and the current page dot matrix into dot matrix blocks having a predetermined granularity; identifying variable data blocks in the current page dot matrix based on the dot matrix blocks; dynamically adjusting the size of the variable data blocks; extracting a variable data dot matrix in the current page dot matrix splitting the current page dot matrix up into the reference page dot matrix and the variable data dot matrix and then storing and outputting them.