To provide a line thermal head printing apparatus which can greatly reduce apparatus dimensions.

A stepping motor 10 for rotary driving a ribbon tape reel is arranged at an upper left corner of a frame plate 9. Simultaneously, a line thermal head 11 is disposed at a lower left corner adjacent to the corner where the stepping motor is arranged. The line thermal head 11 is fixed to the frame plate 9. A driving shaft 2 for taking up a ribbon tape is arranged at an upper right corner beside the stepping motor 10, and a driving shaft 1 for rewinding the ribbon tape is set beside the line thermal head 11. Each shaft is fixed to the frame plate 9. This arrangement makes devices efficiently arranged without any useless space within a plane of the square frame plate 9. At the same time, the ribbon tape 3 sent between reels mounted at both driving shafts 1 and 2 is guided around the devices, namely, along the periphery of the frame plate 9. The devices are mounted using the plane of the frame plate 9 effectively, so that the device configuration is made compact.