PURPOSE: To drive first and second printing element trains correctly regardless of a shorter driving cycle, by feeding printing data to the second printing element train at the timing shifted together with the printing data to the first printing element train.

CONSTITUTION: Among printing patterns generated from a dot pattern generator 5 via a printing data, that to the second printing element train is memorized into a memory circuit 11 by a latch signal from a latch timing generation circuit 10. Drive timing generation circuits 8 and 9 independently generate signals shifted by a specified value from one another deviated being triggered by a specified timing according to the contents of a position counter 4.