PURPOSE: To enhance printing speed, by a method wherein a printing head is stopped by providing it with skip velocities in a plurality of times.

CONSTITUTION: A velocity-discriminating circuit 19 is constituted of a velocity memory part 19a for storing predetermined skip velocity data and a comparing circuit 19b for discriminating the position of a stopping zone of the printing head 11, namely, the zone address (d) at the moment the completion of printing is detected and the magnitude of the distance from that position to a stopping position. Accordingly, when stopping the movement of the printing head 11, the operation can be controlled by commanding velocities different for each zone address, a skippable range is widened, and the scatter of the skip velocities at the time of deceleration is reduced.