PURPOSE: To secure printing quality and prolong the useful life of an ink ribbon, by supplying thermal energy to a transfer region of an ink ribbon passed through a printing head, by a second head device synchronously with a ribbon feeding operation.

CONSTITUTION: An ink ribbon 5 from which an ink is transferred onto a recording paper 2 by a printing head 11 is supplied with thermal energy by a head part 14 of a second head device 13 making contact with the ribbon 5 over the entire width of the ribbon 5. By this, the ink melted in an untransferred high-density ink region surrounding the low-density ink region consumed for transfer is moved to the low-density ink region by capillarity, in a supplying manner. The low-density, transfer ink region passed through the second head device 13 is forcibly leveled by a roller 16, so that assured ink supply is achieved. The thermal energy is supplied to an ink-holding layer in synchronism with an operation of feeding the ink ribbon 5, so that there is no possibility of the trouble of excessive melting of only a part of the ink. Thus, the number of times the ink ribbon can be used can be increased while securing printing quality.