PURPOSE: To rewind a magnetic tape automatically when it is necessary to make a printing by storing addresses of different printing pages recorded on the storing medium and referring to each of stored addresses for rewinding the magnetic tape.

CONSTITUTION: For making a printing, head positions of data which have been recorded on a magnetic tape for printing different pages are recorded in a page information table 202 by a page record control unit 201. Thereafter, in case of an error being generated in printing, the magnetic tape is rewound to a position where the printing is resumed, by a recovery control unit 203. The recovery control unit 203 refers to the content of the page information table 202 until it finds an address of a page on which printing is to be resumed, and when it is found, the control unit calculates the number of blocks to return, and rewind the magnetic tape. After the rewinding operation, the printing operation is performed, following the same procedure as an usual printing.