Patent ID: 7891754

Claim:
A printing method for a printing apparatus that uses a print head having a plurality of print elements to print on a print medium, said printing method comprising the steps of: acquiring positional information on non-ejection print elements in which ink ejection is abnormal; selecting non-ejection print elements as correction targets on the basis of the positional information on the non-ejection print elements acquired in said positional information acquiring step; and complementary printing on print areas of the print medium corresponding to the non-ejection print elements selected in said selecting step as correction targets, using other normal print elements, wherein said selecting step includes calculating a distance between the non-ejection print elements, comparing the calculated distance between the non-ejection print elements with a preset value, and selecting, as one of the correction targets, one of the non-ejection print elements in a combination for which has been determined that the distance between the non-ejection print elements is no more than the preset value.