Ink-jet printer

An ink-jet printer which records an image by discharging ink droplets of an ink onto a recording medium, the ink-jet printer comprising:

• an ink-jet head which has an ink discharge surface formed with a nozzle row, the nozzle row being formed by a plurality of nozzles from which the ink droplets are discharged and which are aligned in an alignment direction;
• a carriage which carries the ink-jet head thereon and which makes the ink-jet head scan by reciprocating in a main scanning direction parallel to the ink discharge surface;
• a transport mechanism which transports the recording medium in a transport direction intersecting the main scanning direction, the ink droplets discharged from the nozzles being landed on the recording medium;
• and
• a discharge controller which is configured to control the ink-jet head to discharge the ink droplets from the nozzles,
• wherein:
• an image recording area of the recording medium on which the image is to be recorded is formed by a plurality of sub recording areas disposed in the transport direction;
• each of the sub recording areas is to be recorded by one scanning operation of the ink-jet head in the main scanning direction;
• the nozzle row includes:
• upstream-side nozzles which are disposed on the upstream side of the nozzle row in the transport direction;
• and downstream-side nozzles which are disposed on the downstream side of the nozzle row in the transport direction;
• the discharge controller is configured to control a discharge timing of the ink droplets so that the ink droplets are discharged from all of the nozzles included in the nozzle row at the same discharge timing in each scanning operation of the ink jet head;
• and
• in a case that the alignment direction is inclined with respect to a sub scanning direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction so that the upstream-side nozzles are positioned on one side in the main scanning direction with respect to the downstream-side nozzles, the discharge controller is configured to change the discharge timing of the ink droplets for every scanning operation of the ink-jet head, such that:
• under the condition that the scanning operation is performed for a central sub recording area which is included in the sub recording areas and which includes a center of the image recording area in the transport direction, the discharge controller is configured to control the ink-jet head to discharge the ink droplets from all of the nozzles included in the nozzle row at a predetermined reference timing to land the ink droplets on reference landing positions in the main scanning direction;
• under the condition that the scanning operation is performed for an upstream-side sub recording area which is included in the sub recording areas and which is disposed on an upstream side in the transport direction as compared with the central sub recording area, the discharge controller is configured to change the discharge timing from the reference timing to deviate the landing positions of the ink droplets to the one side in the main scanning direction with respect to the reference landing positions;
• and
• under the condition that the scanning operation is performed for a downstream-side sub recording area which is included in the sub recording areas and which is disposed on a downstream side in the transport direction as compared with the central sub recording area, the discharge controller is configured to change the discharge timing from the reference timing to deviate the landing positions of the ink droplets to the other side in the main scanning direction with respect to the reference landing positions.