In an inkjet printing system, an actuator that is associated with a nozzle of a printing element is controlled in a normal operating mode, given a non-defective nozzle, to implement at least one standard refresh measure if the time period in which the actuator is not activated to output an ink droplet exceeds a preset limit value. After detection of a defective nozzle, the actuator is controlled in an error operating mode to implement at least one intensified refresh measure.

A container component decorating system has a decorating station (156), a container component handling module (102), a supply of colored inks, and inkjet printheads (124). The decorating station (156) delivers art graphics to container components (14) in a manufacturing queue (22). The inkjet printheads (124) comprise nozzles through which the colored inks are delivered. A flush cycle controller activated a flush cycle of the nozzles to deposit a flush cycle ink pattern (109) on a substrate to restore a meniscus (110) on the nozzles.

A liquid discharge apparatus includes a first detection unit to detect a first movement amount of a recording medium. The apparatus includes a first liquid discharge unit, a first image capturing unit to capture a first image of the medium in a capturing range between the first detection unit and the first liquid discharge unit, a second image capturing unit to capture a second image of the medium in the capturing range between the first discharge unit and the first capturing unit, a second detection unit to detect a second movement amount of the medium based on the first and second images, a first determining unit to determine a discharge timing of the first discharge unit based on the first and second movement amounts, and a second determining unit to determine a capturing timing of the second capturing unit based on the first and second movement amounts.

A method of ink jet printing using an ink jet imaging device including a plurality of nozzles arranged for expelling droplets of an ink by actuation of an ink channel includes the steps of: a) providing a bit map of a spit pattern comprising an arrangement of refresh dots to be printed by each of the plurality of nozzles; and d) printing the bitmap of the spit pattern. The spit pattern includes a plurality of clusters of refresh dots, each cluster including at least two sequential refresh dots expelled from a single nozzle. A spit pattern for use in such a method is disclosed.

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.

Examples relate to a method to print a print job. The method comprise comparing an operational parameter of the print job with a reference operational parameter and determining to perform a maintenance task during the print job based on at least a result of comparing the operational parameter with the reference operational parameter. If the maintenance task is to be performed, the method further comprises determining a safety area on a printable medium and performing a maintenance task on a printable medium.

An image forming apparatus includes a recording head that ejects inks of different colors on a recording medium to form an image based on image data, a storage device that stores a plurality of different dot patterns for flushing, and a control device that functions as: a controller that allows the recording head to make flushing; an image area detector that detects an image area in the image data; an overlapping dot counter that counts a number of overlapping dots for each of the plurality of dot patterns according to which flushing is to be made on the image area, the number of overlapping dots being a number of dots in the dot pattern of the ink ejected on the image area; and a dot pattern assignor that assigns, according to the number of overlapping dots, the respective dot patterns for use in flushing with the inks of different colors.

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes: a head having nozzles; a conveyor configured to convey a recording medium; and a controller. The controller executes: a recording processing of conveying the recording medium by the conveyor and ejecting liquid from the nozzles with respect to the recording medium based on image data; a flushing processing of discharging the liquid from the nozzles with respect to a flushing area, based on flushing data different from the image data; and a first determining processing of determining, based on the image data, whether a time interval after completion of a first recording processing and until start of a second recording processing exceeds a threshold value.

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.

There is provided an image recording apparatus including: a conveyor; a head; a carriage; and a controller. The controller executes: recording of an image; in a case of performing recording of a same image continuously, recording of the same image, while making a setting to be a first setting; calculating of a total ejection amount; and presuming of a point of time at which each of the plurality of nozzles becomes an ejection-defective nozzle having defectiveness in ejection of the liquid. Further, in a case that the controller presumes that a certain nozzle, as any one of the plurality of nozzles, becomes the ejection-defective nozzle before the recording of the same image is completed, the controller changes, before the point of time, the setting to a second setting in which the total ejection amount of the certain nozzle is made greater than that in the first setting.