Patent ID: 6554387
Filing Date: 2003-04-29
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
A printing apparatus that carries out bidirectional, reciprocating main scan and prints on a printing medium, the printing apparatus comprising:a print head having a nozzle array that is arranged in a sub-scanning direction and ejects ink droplets to record dots on the printing medium; a memory that stores a correction value, the correction value being used to correct misalignment of recording positions in a main scanning direction between a forward pass and a backward pass of the main scan; and a positional misalignment correction unit that corrects using the correction value the misalignment of recording positions in the main scanning direction occurring in bidirectional printing between the forward pass and backward pass, wherein the correction value is determined according to correction information that represents a favorable correction state selected based on a positional misalignment test pattern, the positional misalignment test pattern being printed on a printing medium with a representative nozzle sub-array, which is part of the nozzle array and is within a predetermined range around a center of the nozzle array, and wherein the representative nozzle sub-array is part of a full nozzle array of the same color.