To design adequate ink composition for textile printing, the relationship between the dye/additive interaction and the ink performance are investigated. In the present study, three acid dyes, C. I. Acid Red 88, 13, and 27, a water-soluble polymer poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) and three surfactants, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), octaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (OGDE), and Surfynol 465 (S465) were used and the dye/additive interaction was investigated by means of visible absorption measurements. The visible absorption spectra of aqueous dye solutions changed with the addition of the nonionic surfactants, but further addition of PVP hardly changed, indicating that the strong binding of the dye molecules with the nonionic surfactant micelles is maintained even in the presence of PVP. In contrast, in the case of SDS, the spectra changed with the addition of the surfactant as well as further addition of PVP. From the above results, the behavior of the acid dyes in three species coexistence system depends on the dye structure, the surfactant structure, the molecular weight of PVP, and so on. Furthermore, to estimate the ink performance, the physical properties of the ink such as viscosity, surface tension, and ink droplet formation were determined. The composition of the ink solution having excellent ink droplet Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 268 21 5411; fax: +81 268 21 5391 E-mail address: khamada@shinshu-u.ac.jp (K. Hamada) formation was observed, which had appropriate physicochemical properties such as viscosity and surface tension as well as PVP with lower molecular weight. In the optimized ink composition (PVP-1/S465: 1.4/0.004 mol dm -3 ), most of the dye molecules are strongly bound to the PVP chain, but the binding was hardly affected by the addition of S465.