Patent ID: 7708363

Claim:
A printing apparatus, comprising: a head that has an element performing operation for ejecting ink and that ejects a plurality of types of inks, an amount of each ink ejected by the head being different depending on a designated tone value; and a drive signal generating section that generates a drive signal having a waveform section for operating the element and that generates a plurality of types of the drive signals for a specific tone value, the waveform section of each of the drive signals for the specific tone value being different depending on the types of inks, wherein: the drive signal generating section comprises: an original drive signal generating section that generates an original drive signal having a plurality of the waveform sections; a switch that is arranged between the original drive signal generating section and the element and that is for generating from the original drive signal a drive signal to be applied to the element; a switch controller that controls operation of the switch based on the designated tone value and the type of ink; and a switch-operation information storing section storing, for each of the types of inks and each of the tone values, switch-operation information that is for determining the operation of the switch, and the switch controller selects a piece of switch-operation information corresponding to the designated tone value and the type of ink and controls the operation of the switch using the selected switch-operation information.