Abstract: A tube printing apparatus includes a rotatable mandrel wheel which successively moves tubes to be printed to different stations of the apparatus; a plurality of mandrels which hold the tubes on the mandrel wheel; a printing station including a printing blanket which prints the tubes successively moved to the printing station in contact with the printing blanket; a tube orienting head which circumferentially orients the tubes which are moved to the printing station so as to always provide printing on the tubes at the same circumferential position thereof; a reciprocating control assembly which intermittently reciprocates the tube orienting into engagement with the tubes at the printing station; a rotating control assembly which intermittently rotationally orients the tubes for printing to a desired circumferential position; and a common drive connected to the reciprocating control assembly, rotating control assembly and printing blanket to synchronously drive each of the same, thereby eliminating any complex e