In displaying a predetermined image on a plasma display panel, occurrence of an initializing bright point can be suppressed to reduce the maximum voltage in an all-cell initializing operation, light emission in the all-cell initializing operation is suppressed to reduce the black luminance, and the contrast is sharpened. In driving the plasma display panel, one field period includes a plurality of subfields having a setup period for causing initializing discharge in discharge cells, an address period, and a sustain period. One field period includes at least one subfield for applying ramp waveform voltage increasing in the setup period to the scan electrodes. The maximum voltage of the ramp waveform voltage can be varied. When a predetermined image establishing a previously determined condition is displayed, the ramp waveform voltage is generated whose maximum voltage is smaller than when an image other than the predetermined image is displayed, and a positive voltage is applied to the data electrodes at least while the ramp waveform voltage having the smaller maximum voltage is applied to the scan electrodes.