Patent ID: 7513584

Claim:
A printing apparatus comprising: a plurality of heads disposed in a staggering overlapping relationship in a width direction of a printing medium, each one of the plurality of heads including a plurality of ink discharging portions provided in a juxtaposed linear relationship thereon, a pitch between ink discharging portions located at ends of adjacent heads is identical to a space between ink discharging portions of each of the plurality of heads, each one of the plurality of ink discharging portions configured to deflect an ink droplet to be discharged therefrom in a plurality of directions coplanar with the line connecting the ink discharging portions and to set a discharging deflection angle which is a maximum deflection amount of the ink droplet to be discharged from said ink discharging portions to a plurality of angles, wherein, the head is configured to determine a printing resolution, in response to print data from between or among a plurality of printing resolutions which are determined based on a distance separating said ink discharging portions, the discharging deflection angle of the ink droplet to be discharged from said ink discharging portions and a plurality of directions in which the ink droplet can be discharged from said ink discharging portions, the head is configured to select ink discharging portions from which an ink droplet can be discharged and the discharging deflection angle of the discharged ink droplet based on the determined printing resolution, and to determine the discharging direction of one or two or more ink droplets from the selected ink discharging portions, and the head is configured to determine the discharging direction of the ink droplet for each of the selected ink discharging portions to execute printing with the determined printing resolution.