40 discharged ink may be absorbed by the porous member 42 and may be held stably with the above apparatus configuration in an embodiment maintenance with ink discharge may be performed by a flushing operation when an ink cartridge 70 is replaced in the inkjet printer 1 since ink in the vicinity of the aperture of each nozzle of the inkjet head 8 may be in direct contact with the air ink solvent may volatilize and dye or pigment may be deposited on the aperture surface which may increases the ink viscosity the flushing operation may be an operation of ejecting out ink of increased viscosity from the nozzles for example the flushing operation may be performed regularly during printing operations or when a lack of dots occurs during printing with the configuration of fig4 as described above an ordinary flushing operation may be performed in a state in which the inkjet head 8 has been moved to over the discharge mouth 41 of the waste ink tank 40 in an embodiment an ink discharge also may be performed by a flushing operation when an ink cartridge 70 is replaced to avoid a mixing of different types of inks fig3 is a flowchart of a process which may be executed after replacement of an ink cartridge 70 according to an embodiment of the invention the steps of the process may be executed in response to commands sent from the.