A recording apparatus such as a printer for recording onto a recording medium by use of an ink sheet having an ink comprises: a thermal head to heat the ink sheet to thereby record onto the recording medium; a peeling device to peel off the ink sheet from the recording medium after the heating of the ink sheet by the thermal head on the basis of the recording information; and a controller to control the peeling condition of the peeling device on the basis of the recording information so as to initialize the peeling device at the time of the exchange of the ink sheet or the power-ON of the apparatus. With this apparatus, the high quality recording can be certainly performed by a desired color in response to the color information. This apparatus can mount either the uni-color ink ribbon or the two-color ink ribbon. The heating position of the thermal head is controlled so as to start the recording from the print start position in the first or second recordable area which is defined in accordance with the selected one of the uni-color and two-color ink ribbons.