Inkjet recording apparatus and method for estimating the amount of waste ink in the inkjet recording apparatus

A waste-ink estimating method for estimating the amount of waste ink during full-surface recording in a recording apparatus that ejects ink through a recording head while causing the recording head to scan a recording medium, the full-surface recording involving recording on the entire surface of the recording medium by ejecting ink to an area extending off the recording medium, the method comprising:

• a counting step of dividing a print buffer into a plurality of segments and counting, on a segment-by-segment basis, the amount of recording data used the recording head to perform a recording operation, the print buffer being provided for storing recording data in relationship to a scanning direction of the recording head, the recording data being inputted from an external device;
• a selecting step of comparing the recording medium to the print buffer with respect to the scanning direction of the recording head and, from the plurality of segments, selecting segments not corresponding to the inside of the recording medium;
• a calculating step of counting the amount of recording data included in the segments selected in the selecting step and causing a recording operation to occur, and calculating the cumulative amount of the recording data;
• and
• an estimating step of estimating, based on the cumulative amount calculated in the calculating step, the amount of waste ink ejected from the recording head to the outside of the recording medium in the full-surface recording.