Patent ID: 7607748

Claim:
A printing device for printing on a print medium, comprising: a print head in which are formed a plurality of nozzles that are capable of ejecting ink contained in a cartridge; a printing control module that controls the print head in such a way that, when a number of sheets printed has not reached a number of sheets guaranteed for printing, a printing operation of ejecting ink onto a print medium from the nozzles is performed on the basis of print data, and when the number of sheets printed has reached the number of sheets guaranteed for printing, the printing operation is shut off; a flushing request module that requests performance of flushing that ejects ink from the nozzles onto an area where printing does not take place: and a flushing control module that, in response of a request for flushing by the flushing request module while a printing operation onto a sheet of print medium is being performed, controls the print head in such a way that the requested flushing is performed to an extent that an ink amount actually used for flushing per sheet does not exceed an allowable ink amount for flushing that is derived on the basis of the amount of residual ink predicted and the number of sheets remaining for printing and can be used for flushing per sheet of print medium, where the amount of residual ink predicted being an amount which is predicted to remain superfluous in the cartridge on the assumption that only printing is performed from a time immediately prior to the commencement of the printing operation and the number of sheets printed has reached the number of sheets guaranteed for printing, and the number of sheets remaining for printing being obtained by subtracting the number of sheets printed from the number of sheets guaranteed for printing.