Thermal transfer printing apparatus

摘要

A thermal transfer printing apparatus has an improved ink sheet interchanging device. A fusion type or sublimation type thermal transfer printing using a combination of many kinds of ink sheets can be carried out by a single printing apparatus. A desired ink sheet cassette or ink sheet is selected by a carrier from a plurality of ink sheet cassettes each having an ink sheet, and moved in the recording paper transfer direction to a printing portion. A plurality of ink sheet cassettes are arranged at the up-stream side and down-stream side of the cassette transferring direction with respect to the printing portion or stacked at either one of the up-stream side and the down-stream side of the cassette transferring direction. Each of the ink sheet cassettes includes a supply core and a take-up core of the ink sheet arranged horizontally or vertically, and each of the take-up cores is transferred from the ink sheet cassette over the printing portion and returned to the ink sheet cassette after the printing.