PRINTER EQUIPPED WITH PRINTING POSITION INDENTIFYING FUNCTION

PURPOSE:To immediately identify an intuitive printing condition and a compatibility of paper, by a method wherein, on the basis of the data of a selected printing data file, the position of the outline of a printing area is obtained in non-printing states, and a printing head is shifted without conducting printing. CONSTITUTION:When a selecting means M4 selects a required file from a printing data file group M3, a printing outline detecting means M6 obtains the position of an outline of a printing area, which is assumed to be formed on a material to be printed M1 in the printing of the file, not by printing but by referring to the data of the file. A position identifying shift means M7 shifts a printing head M2 of non-printing states to this outline. Namely, a printer itself which executes printing later by a printing control means M5 previously detects, for example, margin data from file data to be printed and simply shifts the printing head M2 to a position corresponding to a margin without conducting printing. In this manner, a suitably printed material M1, such as paper, can be specified without the waste of the material to be printed M1 and a printing time.