Patent ID: 7673986

Claim:
An inkjet recording apparatus comprising: a belt transporting apparatus including a plurality of rollers, an endless transport belt looped around the rollers and a transport belt driving unit which causes the transport belt to travel by rotating the rollers to move a recording medium placed on an outer peripheral face of the transport belt in a predetermined transportation direction; a nip roller which is capable of nipping the recording medium in cooperation with the outer peripheral face at a predetermined position; a nip-roller moving mechanism which moves the nip roller between a position where the nip roller is in contact with the outer peripheral face and a position where the nip roller is separate from the outer peripheral face; an inkjet head including a plurality of nozzles for ejecting an ink to the recording medium on the transport belt; an applying unit which applies cleaning fluid to the outer peripheral face; a blade which is in contact with the outer peripheral face on a downstream side of a position where the cleaning fluid is applied to the outer peripheral face by the applying unit in a travel direction of the transport belt to scrape off the cleaning fluid and ink that adhere to the outer peripheral face; a travel controlling unit which controls the transport belt driving unit to cause the transport belt to travel; and a nip-roller movement controlling unit which controls, when the transport belt starts to travel, the nip-roller moving mechanism to cause the nip roller to be contacted with the outer peripheral face after an initial contact place passes the predetermined position, the initial contact place being a place where the blade is initially contacted with the outer peripheral face.