A thermal transfer type printing apparatus includes a monochromatic printing section and multi-color printing section. The monochromatic printing section includes a thermal head unit for thermally transferring an ink layer of a black ink ribbon onto a paper sheet according to a black image signal. The multi-color printing section includes a thermal head unit for successively transferring cyan, magenta and yellow layers of a multi-color ink ribbon in an overlap state onto the paper sheet according to image signals for the respective colors.