US Patent 7165826 Image forming apparatus

In discharge recovery processing, a continuous sheet 23 is moved from a facing position facing a head portion 21 to a first position (in the down direction in the drawing) as an evacuating position in the discharge recovery processing, thereafter, a discharge recovery processing unit 22 in the standby mode at a second position (in the up direction in the drawing) different from the facing position is moved to the facing position, and the discharge recovery processing is performed. In the discharge recovery processing, the head unit 21 is not moved and therefore the preferable positional reproducibility is obtained after ending the discharge recovery processing.