Patent ID: 7671878

Claim:
A thermal printer comprising: a feeding mechanism which feeds one of thermal papers which include a double-sided thermal paper having thermosensitive layers formed on both sides thereof and a single-sided thermal paper having a thermosensitive layer formed on one side thereof; a first thermal head which is so provided as to be brought into contact with a first side of the thermal paper fed by the feeding mechanism and is configured to print an image on the first side of the paper; a second thermal head which is so provided as to be brought into contact with a second side of the thermal paper fed by the feeding mechanism and is configured to print an image on the second side of the paper; a mark determination section which is configured to determine whether a mark has been printed on at least one of the first and second sides of the thermal paper; and a controller which is configured to control print operation based on a determination result from the mark determination section, wherein the controller is configured to control double-sided printing by the first and second thermal heads in the case where the mark determination section has determined that a mark has been printed on both the first and second sides of the thermal paper, the controller is configured to control single-sided printing by the first thermal head in the case where the mark determination section has determined that a mark has been printed on the first side of the thermal paper and control single-sided printing by the second thermal head in the case where the mark determination section has determined that a mark has been printed on one of the second side of the thermal paper.