PURPOSE: To obtain a tape printer which can conduct printing without deteriorating a printing quality when a tap as a printing medium is cut with a predetermined amount of margin provided downstream of a printing start edge of the tape and improve a printing processing efficiency to a great extent when the margin is not provided.

CONSTITUTION: In a ROM 41 of a tape printer, a printing speed table is stored. The table is made of drive pulse periods and voltage applying times for supplying a drive voltage to a thermal head 13 separately for a high-speed printing and a low-speed printing. When a printing key is operated and a margin setting mode is set (S10:Yes)', a drive pulse period and a voltage applying time for a low-speed printing are read from the printing speed table (S11). On the other hand, when a margin setting mode is not set (S10:No) a drive pulse period and a voltage applying time for a high-speed printing are read (S20). A printing processing based on each of the read information is conducted (S12, S21).