PURPOSE: To enhance the degree of freedom of the expression of a sentence and to enable printing of high quality by arbitrarily arranging characters of various sizes on printing paper by providing a head moving means moving a head along the feed direction of printing paper to a head mounting stand moved in a printing direction.

CONSTITUTION: In a serial dot matrix printer, a head 8 constituted of ink jet nozzles or impact wire pins and heating elements is selectively driven by a printing command to print a character or a bit image. The carriage 5 having the head 8 attached thereto is sent in a line direction by a carriage motor 6. Printing paper is sent in the direction shown by an arrow by a paper feed motor 201. In this constitution, the head 8 is moved in a vertical direction by a figure direction carriage motor 6 through a figure feed mechanism 7. That is, the head 8 is moved in the direction shown by an arrow 25 and printing is applied to printing paper 19 held to a planar state by a procket wheel 17 and a platen 22.