The invention discloses a surface printing device applied to optical fiber cables. The surface printing device comprises a tension regulating air cylinder, a hot embossing wheel, ink ribbon mounting reels, a lifting plate and a translation plate, wherein ink ribbons are wound on the ink ribbon mounting reels; a right guide shaft and a left shaft are fixed on the upper surface of a base; a fixed seat is fixed in the middles of the two guide shafts; the translation plate is located in front of the lifting plate; two linear rails allowing forward and backward travelling are parallelly arranged on the upper surface of a bottom plate of the lifting plate; two sliding blocks are arranged on the lower surface of the bottom plate of the translation plate; the two linear rails are embedded in the grooves of the two sliding blocks respectively; the tension regulating air cylinder is vertically mounted on the base; a cylinder barrel of the tension regulating air cylinder is fixed on the base; the tail end of a piston rod of the tension regulating air cylinder is connected to the bottom plate of the lifting plate; and a first camera and a second camera are mounted on the front surface of the translation plate and are located on two sides of the hot embossing wheel respectively. The surface printing device provided by the invention can emboss clear and durable print content on the surface of an optical fiber cable jacket, and the print content is complete, durable and clear; and elastic pressure causes no indentation in the surface of the optical fiber cable jacket, so that the product quality is guaranteed.