A first frame holds a platen. A second frame holds a head. When the second frame is at a first position, the head faces the platen. When the second frame is at a second position, the second frame is positioned farther away from the first frame than when the second frame is at the first position. At the second position, the head is positioned farther away from the platen than when the second frame is at the first position. A head lifter is held by the second frame. At the first position, the head lifter moves the head with respect to the second frame between a printing position and a separate position. At the printing position, the head ejects liquid toward a medium supported by the platen. At the separate position, the head is farther away from the platen in an intersecting direction than at the printing position.

An inkjet printer includes an ink head, a carriage, and a first discharge controller. The ink head discharges photo-curable ink onto a recording medium. The ink head includes a colored ink nozzle group to discharge colored photo-curable ink, and a transparent ink nozzle group to discharge transparent photo-curable ink. The carriage is equipped with the ink head. The first discharge controller is configured or programmed to, when either one of the carriage and the recording medium makes a single movement, cause the colored ink nozzle group and the transparent ink nozzle group to discharge the colored photo-curable ink and the transparent photo-curable ink, respectively, onto a predetermined region so as to form a colored image and a texture image. The texture image includes the colored photo-curable ink and the transparent photo-curable ink that overlap with each other.

The present invention provides an ink jet recording method capable of recording an image having good abrasion resistance by using an aqueous ink and a reaction liquid. In the ink jet recording method, the aqueous ink containing a resin particle and the reaction liquid containing a reactant for aggregating the component in the aqueous ink are ejected from a recording head of the ink jet system and applied onto a recording medium. The reaction liquid contains a compound represented by the general formula (1) (n in the formula represents an integer of 0 to 3). At least one of the aqueous ink and the reaction liquid contains a surfactant having an HLB value of ≤ 15.

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A printing apparatus includes a maintenance unit that can wipe a discharge port surface of a printing unit provided with a first discharge port array to discharge an ink and a second discharge port array to discharge a reaction liquid that reacts with the ink, by using a wiping member provided with a property to absorb the ink and the reaction liquid. In the wiping member, a first wiping portion to wipe the first discharge port array and a second wiping portion to wipe the second discharge port array are located in different positions in a first direction being a direction of relative movement of the printing unit and the maintenance unit.

A printer includes a controller to exercise control so as to print a print layer on or over a medium. The print layer includes a first print region including first protrusions, and a second print region including second protrusions. Any one or more of a size, a height, a planar shape, an arrangement interval, and an arrangement direction of the first protrusions is/are different from a corresponding one or more of a size, a height, a planar shape, an arrangement interval, and an arrangement direction of the second protrusions. An extracted area of about 3 cm by about 3 cm is extracted from any location in the print layer. The first and second print regions are in the extracted area. At least either a number of first print regions or a number of second print regions in the extracted area is more than one.

A drop placement analyzer for an inkjet printer is described herein. The drop placement analyzer comprises a film support that has an opaque, optically non-interfering vacuum surface for immobilizing a film against the optically non-interfering vacuum surface and photographing drops disposed on the film from the same side of the film on which the drops are disposed.

Provided are an inkjet printing device and a printing method capable of grasping a position of a non-product image, such as a jetting state monitoring pattern, on a continuous medium. An inkjet printing device includes a medium transport mechanism that transports a continuous medium (12) in a medium transport direction, an inkjet head that prints a user image on the continuous medium, one or more processors, and one or more memories that are connected to the processors and store commands which are able to be executed by using the processors, in which the processor reads out the command from the memory and prints non-product image position information (304) including information on a position of a non-product image (302) printed on the continuous medium in the continuous medium at a position (12A) on a downstream side of a region in which the non-product image is printed in the medium transport direction.

An ink jet ink set includes a plurality of inks to be ejected by an ink jet method. The ink set includes a first ink containing metal particles, and a second ink containing a coloring agent selected from materials other than metal. The surface tension of the first ink is lower than that of the second ink.

An inkjet printer includes a first light applicator disposed in a second scanning direction relative to a recording head. The first light applicator includes a first upstream light source group at a location corresponding to a location of the recording head in a movement direction of a recording medium, and a first downstream light source group on a downstream side in the movement direction of the recording medium relative to the recording head. The inkjet printer turns off the first upstream light source group and turns on the first downstream light source group during movement of a carriage in a first scanning direction and discharge of first ink from the recording head, and turns on the first upstream light source group and the first downstream light source group during movement of the carriage in the second scanning direction after discharge of the first ink.

A printing apparatus, including a discharging head for discharging ultraviolet-curable ink droplets, an energizer to supply energy to the ink droplets, a carriage with the discharging head and the energizer mounted thereon movable in a main scanning direction, and a controller, is provided. The controller forms a dots-linked portion having a plurality of the ink droplets landed on the printable medium being linked with one another and cured in a shape elongated in the main scanning direction. The controller forms both a dividing dot and a divided-dots linking portion or the divided-dots linking portion alone. The dividing dot is formed of a single one of the ink droplets cured independently at a position to one of adjoin and overlap the dots-linked portion in the main scanning direction. The divided-dots linking portion has a plurality of the ink droplets being linked and cured in a shape elongated in a sub-scanning direction.