Thermal printer and thermal printing method

摘要

A thermal printer having a flattening unit which extends in the direction of intersecting the direction of feeding a recording paper. The flattening unit is heated to a temperature lower than the dye transfer temperature, and heats and presses the surface of the recording paper after printing to flatten the surface. Since there are fewer hard copies with characters being printed with black dye, the black dye transfer process period is used for the flattening process by a color image recording unit without providing a separate flattening unit.