Patent ID: 7726770

Claim:
An inkjet printer comprising: a print head formed with one or more ink ejection opening for printing a printing medium by ejecting ink through the ink ejection opening; a maintaining unit that restores the ink ejection state of the print head by flowing ink through the ink ejection opening; a timing unit that keeps track of an elapsed time after the maintaining unit has executed a maintenance operation; a notifying unit that issues a notification notifying a user when it is time to execute a maintenance operation if the elapsed time measured by the timing unit exceeds a prescribed time, the notification being postponed until the elapsed time measured by the timing unit exceeds the prescribed time; a maintenance command determining unit that determines whether or not the user has issued a command to execute a maintenance operation with the maintaining unit after the notifying unit has issued a notification; and a maintenance operation executing unit that executes a maintenance operation with the maintaining unit when the maintenance command determining unit determines that the user has issued a command to execute the maintenance operation.