Patent ID: 8136902

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a recording head including a plurality of heads, each of the heads including a plurality of arranged nozzles to discharge a droplet, wherein the plurality of heads are arranged in a zigzag formation with respect to a nozzle array direction; a conveyer belt with a plurality of suction holes to convey a printing medium in a direction intersecting a head array direction; a suction unit to suction the printing medium through the plurality of suction holes of the conveyer belt; and a control unit to control a blank discharging operation to discharge a blank discharging droplet not contributing to image forming from the nozzles when there is no printing medium on the conveyer belt; wherein a plurality of suction hole arrays, each of the suction hole arrays including the plurality of suction holes arranged in the head array direction, are arranged at a predetermined interval; wherein at least one of the plurality of suction hole arrays is a reference suction hole array including the suction hole to pass a position facing the nozzle of an end of a nozzle array and the nozzle in an overlapping part of two heads in the nozzle array direction; and wherein the control unit performs a control to make each nozzle in the recording head discharge the blank discharging droplet toward the suction holes, using the reference suction hole array as a standard.