To provide a card printer whose operability is improved.

In the card printer 1, the presence/absence of a magnetic stripe T is detected by a magnetic sensor 61 positioned on an upstream side of a magnetic reading/writing part 7. Thus, before a card S is conveyed to the magnetic reading/writing part 7, which surface of the conveyed card S is a magnetic stripe surface S1 is discriminated based on the detecting signal of the magnetic sensor 61. Thus, by predefining the direction of a printing surface during the conveying of the card S into the printer 1, whether the conveyed card S is a standard card or a substandard card is discriminated by the magnetic sensor 61. In other words, in the card printer 1, the necessity of such discrimination in a conventional card printer is eliminated from a panel operation.