The printing apparatus has: a recording medium holding device which holds a recording medium; a recording information acquisition device which acquires data relating to recording information recorded on the recording medium; a storage device which stores data relating to character images; an automatic determination device which automatically selects the character image corresponding to the data relating to the recording information recorded on the recording medium, from the character images stored in the storage device; and a printing device which prints the character image selected by the automatic determination device, onto a surface of the recording medium.