PURPOSE: To permit a printing head to print under desired printing conditions, by providing a storing and controlling means for storing the printing conditions and outputting a control signal, a means for periodically generating a printing reference signal, a means for storing enable data, a means for holding higher- order data, and a means for generating lower-order addresses.

CONSTITUTION: When a printing starting signal 47 is outputted from a calculating, storing and controlling circuit 32 to a counting circuit 33 and a first period signal 38 is outputted from a first counting circuit 33a, an address-counting circuit 35 immediately starts counting, and when lower-order address data 46 outputted from the circuit 35 to ROMs 36a, 36b becomes '1', the first enable signal 11 is outputted to a thermal printing head 41, and the first printing is performed. Printing is sequentially performed by repeating this operation until a stopping command is outputted from an input circuit 31 or decision of stoppage is given through comparison of the number of printed lines with the number of lines to be printed based on printing pattern information stored in the circuit 32. The enable signal 11 can be accurately obtained based on printing pulses with a desired timing.