This invention provides a form plate making apparatus which can reduce the time necessary for a plate making operation, can make the plate making operation easy, and can accomplish a high precision plate making operation. A planar plate making table is disposed on an upper part of a casing, and head carriage mechanism for moving a thermal head is disposed on this plate making table. A screen frame to which a screen equipped with a heat-sensitive material is fitted is placed on the plate making table, and a platen is disposed inside this screen frame so that the screen equipped with the heat-sensitive material is brought into close contact with the platen. The thermal head is moved on the plate making table by the head carriage mechanism, and power feed control is applied to heating elements of the head in accordance with character and image data so as to bore predetermined holes in the heat-sensitive material of the screen. Because the plate is produced while the screen is fitted to the screen frame as described above, a plate having the holes correctly bored at predetermined positions to the screen frame can be obtained.