Patent ID: 7121645

Claim:
An ink jet printing apparatus that performs printing by ejecting ink from each of a plurality of print heads, comprising: suction means for sucking out ink from nozzles of at least one of the print heads; a suction cap for protecting a nozzle face of the at least one print head, said suction cap being connected to said suction means; a protective cap for protecting a nozzle face of at least one other print head, said protective cap not being connected to said suction means; and ejection recovery means for differentiating an ejection recovery operation between the at least one print head protected by said suction cap and the at least one other print head protected by said protective cap, wherein, when a time which has elapsed from an end of a previous printing operation is within a predetermined time, said ejection recovery means sets the number of idle ejections performed by the at least one print head protected by said suction cap to be less than the number of idle ejections performed by the at least one other print head protected by said protective cap.