Abstract: A thermal message printer for printing a wide block of text which is produced with low cost printheads. The printer includes a thermal printer having a first number of fixed printheads equal in number to the lines to be printed on thermographic paper. Each of the fixed printheads has a second number of dot elements which are energized in a column fashion according to a pattern of dots to be energized from a matrix of dots for each of the characters. Control means are included for sequentially energizing selected ones of the dot heads in order to form the series of characters such that a wide block of text is printed.