A printhead assembly for a typewriter of the kind that swipes a printhead along a ribbon in producing marks on a receiving medium, is mounted to pivot and includes a ribbon guide that serves to wrap the ribbon around the trailing side (for a forward printing direction) of the printhead. The assembly is positioned to permit the printhead to be rotated to a normal printing position at a printing line. By so arranging the ribbon path that the ribbon directions for arrival and departure of the assembly intersect the pivot axis, essentially zero resultant torque may be applied to the assembly by ribbon tension forces and the printing pressure at the receiving medium is, accordingly, unaffected by ribbon tension variations.