Conductive heating of print media

Heat is uniformly conducted to print media (22) in an ink-jet printer in conjunction with the uniform application of vacuum pressure to the media for supporting the media as it is conveyed on a heated belt (60) through the printer. The heat is applied to the media by conduction, in a manner that does not overheat the print head (24) of the printer nor interfere with the trajectory of the droplets expelled from the print head. The heat is applied to the media in the print zone (28) as well as regions on either side of the print zone where the media enters and exits the print zone. The amount of heat applied to each of these regions is independently controlled, and can be related to the physical characteristics of the particular type of print media or inks that are used.