An inkjet printing apparatus for printing on a substrate, such as a flexible packaging material, includes at least three inkjet heads including a first inkjet head, a second inkjet head, and at least one further inkjet head. At least one drying unit includes a first drying unit arranged opposite a first drying location which is located between the first and second inkjet location, the first drying unit being configured for physically removing liquid from ink applied by the first inkjet head. At least a first drum and a second drum, where the first and second inkjet locations as well as the first drying location are located on an outer surface of the first drum; and the at least one further inkjet location is located on an outer surface of the second drum.

A liquid surface imaging device includes an irradiator including a plurality of lightings, the irradiator configured to irradiate a liquid surface in a nozzle of a liquid discharge head with lights emitted from the plurality of lightings, and an imaging device configured to image the liquid surface. The plurality of lightings is arranged point-asymmetrically with a center of the imaging device as a point of symmetry.

A liquid discharge apparatus includes a liquid discharge head, circuitry, and an image detector. The liquid discharge head includes multiple nozzles and discharges a liquid from the multiple nozzles. The circuitry causes the liquid discharge head to discharge the liquid onto a recording medium to form an image in an image area of the recording medium in a printing operation. The image detector reads the image formed on the recording medium. The circuitry further causes the liquid discharge head to discharge the liquid onto at least one of a leading end or a trailing end of the recording medium to form a flushing pattern different from the image in a flushing operation, causes the image detector to read the flushing pattern, detect a defective part in the flushing pattern read by the image detector, and identify a defective nozzle among the multiple nozzles based on defective part.

Provided is a recording head cleaning device, a recording head cleaning method, and a recording device, with which a cleaning liquid from a nozzle is prevented from being mixed and a nozzle surface is cleaned. The problem is solved with a recording head cleaning device including a cleaning liquid holding unit that has a cleaning liquid holding surface, a cleaning liquid applying portion that applies a cleaning liquid to the cleaning liquid holding surface, a cleaning unit that cleans a nozzle surface of a recording head, in which a nozzle jetting an ink is disposed, with the cleaning liquid held by the cleaning liquid holding surface by making the cleaning liquid holding surface and the nozzle surface face each other, the nozzle surface with the cleaning liquid held by the cleaning liquid holding surface, and a back pressure control unit that sets a back pressure of the nozzle in a case of cleaning the nozzle surface to −800 pascals to −200 pascals.

There are provided an ink jet printing apparatus, a dummy jet method, and a program which can execute a dummy jet at a dummy jet execution timing in which a use status of a nozzle is taken into consideration. A non-jettable period and a required jetting amount of an ink jet head are set for each nozzle, and in a case where the dummy jet for a dummy jet execution nozzle is executed with a jetting amount insufficient for the required jetting amount, at a determination timing of determining the necessity of execution of the dummy jet, for the nozzle of which a total jetting amount in the non-jettable period is less than the required jetting amount, the dummy jet is not executed in a case where a period from a printing start to a next jetting timing is equal to or greater than a period obtained by adding a determination interval to a period from the printing start to the determination timing.

A liquid discharge apparatus includes a plurality of head units configured to discharge a liquid, a plurality of sub tanks configured to respectively store the liquid to be supplied to the plurality of head units, and a plurality of upper limit detectors configured to respectively detect upper limits of remaining amounts of liquid in the plurality of sub tanks. At least two of the plurality of upper limit detectors of corresponding at least two of the plurality of sub tanks detect different upper limits of the remaining amounts of liquid in the at least two of the plurality of sub tanks.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device, a reading device, and circuitry. The image forming device discharges ink droplets through nozzles to form an image on a recording medium conveyed in a first direction. The reading device reads the image formed on the recording medium. The circuitry generates a correction chart that includes patches, located in the first direction and representing different densities from each other, and two marks located at different positions from each other in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The circuitry locates opposed end portions of the patches in the second direction outside the two marks in the second direction. The circuitry derives correction data, based on read data of an area of the patches existing inside the two marks in the second direction included in read data provided by the reading device reading the correction chart formed on the recording medium.

A cleaning device includes: a cleaning member that comes into contact with a cleaning subject member and cleans the cleaning subject member using a liquid; and a liquid supply member that holds the liquid on a surface that is in contact with the cleaning member and supplies the held liquid to the cleaning member via the surface. The liquid supply member includes a plurality of holders that hold a different amount of liquid from each other in the surface.

It is intended to allow whether or not a noise included in a read image is a noise due to an ink ejection failure to be more reliably determined. An image reading device includes an image reading unit that reads an image formation surface of paper by using a reducing optical system and a control unit. The image reading unit includes a plurality of read sensors disposed at positions displaced from each other in a main scanning direction. The plurality of read sensors are disposed to be able to read the image formation surface by using at least a local region of the image formation surface as a common region to be read. The control unit determines, based on a first image obtained by a first read sensor included in the plurality of read sensors and on a second image obtained by a second read sensor included in the plurality of read sensors, an amount of displacement of a noise resulting from a parallax between the first read sensor and the second read sensor and determines, based on the amount of displacement, whether or not the noise is present on the image formation surface.

An image forming apparatus includes a rotational conveying unit for conveying a recording medium by rotating about a rotational axis. A head unit includes n nozzle rows in a conveying direction perpendicular to an axial direction parallel to the rotational axis. Each of the n nozzle rows includes nozzles aligned as a nozzle row in the axial direction. Each n nozzle row is arranged at a distance of d1 to d(n−1) from a predetermined reference nozzle row. A circuit outputs a rotational amount detection signal, and a conveying amount detection signal, and generates a discharge synchronization signal based on the detected rotational amount detection signal and the detected conveying amount detection signal, then generates a nozzle row timing signal based on the distance of the d1 to d(n−1) and the discharge synchronization signal, and generates discharge data based on the discharge synchronization signal and the nozzle row timing signal.