A versatile hand held thermal printer has a hinged bottom cover which can be opened to provide easier access and loading of a roll of labels into the thermal printer. In a first mode of operation, printed labels emerge through the front of the label printer one by one, peeled from their backing sheet and ready for being applied directly to an article. In a second mode, the labels emerge attached to a strip of backing sheet to provide a plurality of printed labels on a strip. The hinged bottom cover of the labeler has cutters both at the front and at the rear thereof to enable a length of the strip of labels issuing at the front or a length of the backing sheet at the rear to be easily cut off. In a further embodiment, the thermal printer is positioned on a stand and the stand further supports a control unit into which information that is to be printed on the labels is inputted. The stand further includes an upright reel supporter on which a roll or web of thermal tag strips can be located. The thermal tag strip is guided into the printer unit for imprinting information thereon.