In a liquid discharging apparatus for discharging droplets from a liquid discharge nozzle to a discharge object to be discharged and in a method for controlling the liquid discharging apparatus, cleaning effects for the ink discharge nozzle and the adjacent areas can be enhanced, and the time required for a series of performance maintaining operations can be reduced. The apparatus includes a platen plate for supporting recording paper as the discharge object, defining a positional relationship between the discharge object and the liquid discharge head, and receiving the droplets discharged from the liquid discharge head. Ink droplets are preliminarily discharged from the ink discharge nozzle to the platen plate.