Printing apparatus and printing method

A printing apparatus comprising:

• a medium holding section that holds a target print medium;
• a discharge head, which is provided with a nozzle surface in which discharge nozzles that discharge liquid droplets are open, the nozzle surface being arranged so as to be able to face a holding surface of the medium holding section that holds the target print medium;
• a relative movement section that moves the discharge head and the medium holding section relatively;
• a pattern shape storage section that stores a shape pattern of the target print medium;
• a detection section that detects at least one piece of positional information for a target print medium held in the medium holding section;
• a head distance calculation section that calculates a shape of the target print medium by comparing at least one piece of positional information that is detected with the shape pattern, and calculates a distance between the nozzle surface and the target printing surface of the target print medium from the shape;
• and
• a control section that controls at least one of the discharge head and the relative movement section depending on the shape, wherein
• the detection section includes:
• a light emitting section that emits light that travels in at least a direction that is parallel to the holding surface,
• a light receiving section that detects the light emitted from the light emitting section, and
• a distance changing section that changes a distance in a direction that is perpendicular to the holding surface between a light path, which reaches from the light emitting section to the light receiving section, and the holding surface.