A liquid discharge apparatus includes a support portion that supports a sheet that is transported and a discharge unit that includes a carriage that is freely movable in scanning directions that intersect with a transport direction of the sheet and a liquid discharge head that is mounted on the carriage and that discharges ink to the sheet. End portions of the discharge unit in the scanning directions are provided with a plurality of ribs that are protruded along the scanning directions and that are provided so as to be juxtaposed with intervals in the transport direction. The ribs press a bend of the sheet toward the support portion as the carriage moves along the scanning directions.

In an inkjet printer, a controller is configured to calculate, during movement of a carriage in a scanning direction, a signal level difference between a first detection signal in a mountain peak zone including an assumed mountain peak position and the first detection signal in a valley bottom zone including an assumed valley bottom position identified, based on information stored in a storage, and alternately execute, during the movement of the carriage, an ejection process of ejecting ink drops, and a conveying process of conveying the sheet by a predetermined line feed width. In the printing process, the printing head and the conveyor are driven according to a first condition when the signal level difference is equal to or larger than a threshold value, while driven according to a second condition when the signal level difference is less than the threshold value.

A recording apparatus includes an ejecting unit which can eject first ink for image forming and colorless second ink onto a recording medium; and a control unit which can control ejecting operations of the first ink and the second ink in the ejecting unit, in which the control unit performs a plurality of ejecting operations of the first ink with respect to one ejecting operation of the second ink, so that at least a part of a landing position of the second ink and a landing position of the first ink overlap on the recording medium.

An apparatus includes a printing head (154) comprising jet nozzles (158) spaced apart from one another, where a distance from a first jet nozzle to a second jet nozzle positioned adjacent the first jet nozzle defines a jet-spacing, a printing head position control assembly includes a first actuator assembly (102) to move the printing head along the longitudinal axis and a second actuator assembly (103) to move the printing head along a latitudinal axis, and an control unit communicatively coupled to the printing head position control assembly. The control unit causes jet nozzles to dispense drops of binder (50) while the printing head traverses a first pass trajectory along the longitudinal axis in a first direction, indexes the printing head to a second pass trajectory along the latitudinal axis, and causes jet nozzles to dispense drops of binder while the printing head traverses the second pass trajectory along the longitudinal axis in a second direction.

A recording apparatus includes a recording head configured to perform recording on a recording medium being conveyed in a conveyance direction, a carriage in which the recording head is mounted, the carriage being configured to perform scanning in a scanning direction that intersects the conveyance direction, and a guide member including a flat surface configured to guide the carriage in the scanning direction. The carriage includes a sliding part configured to slide in contact with the guide member, an impregnated member impregnated with lubricant on at least one side of the sliding part in the scanning direction, and a pressure member configured to press the impregnated member to the guide member side from a surface on a side opposite to the guide member with respect to the impregnated member.

A printing apparatus includes a head to discharge liquid, a carriage to support the head and reciprocate in a forward direction and a backward direction, and a controller. The controller executes a printing process to print one image in a plurality of copies by discharging the liquid from the head while moving the carriage in the forward direction and the backward direction, based on a print job for printing the one image in the plurality of copies, and a first determining process to determine a moving direction of the carriage for second and following copies, based on a moving result of the carriage in printing for the first copy in the printing process.

Provided is a printing method for performing printing using a serial printer. In printing of a print image including a line image, the printing method includes a raster line forming step of forming each of raster lines configuring the image, by a plurality of pass operations. In the formation of each of the raster lines, when printing of a region corresponding to edge pixels of the line image by a first pass operation, which is one of the plurality of pass operations, is first printing, and printing of the region corresponding to the edge pixels by a second pass operation that is different from the first pass operation, of the plurality of pass operations, is second printing, a brightness of the printing by the second printing is higher than a brightness of the printing by the first printing.

A method for determining a working gap includes a first recording step for ejecting ink from a recording head onto a first recording medium to record a test pattern, a first imaging step for capturing the test pattern recorded on the first recording medium in each of a state where a distance between the recording head and the first recording medium is a first distance, and a state where a distance between the recording head and the first recording medium is a second distance, a function calculating step, a second recording step for recording the test pattern on a second recording medium, a second imaging step for capturing the test pattern recorded on the second recording medium, and a working gap determining step for determining, based on the number of pixels of the captured test pattern and a function, a distance between the recording head and the second recording medium.

Bidirectional multi-pass printing with three or more passes prints a high-quality image with reduced time difference unevenness. To this end, an image in a unit region on a printing medium is printed by a print head performing 2N+1 bidirectional print scans (where N is a natural number). In this printing, a print permission rate for an even-numbered print scan of the 2N+1 times of the print scans is set lower than the print permission rate for an odd-numbered print scan of the 2N+1 times of the print scans.

A liquid ejection apparatus includes a liquid ejection head, a sensor, a carriage, and a controller. The controller is configured to perform: setting a first sheet at a first printing position; printing an image on the first sheet while conveying the first sheet from the first printing position; determining whether an interval is more than a predetermined period; in a case where the interval is determined to be more than the predetermined period: causing the carriage to move in a first direction to a first detection position at which a second sheet is detected; and in response to detecting the second sheet, causing the carriage to move in the first direction to a first carriage position.