Method of managing thermal printer and thermal printer for performing the same

A printing apparatus comprising:

• a printer including a thermal print head, and configured to perform printing on paper;
• storage configured to store a program for performing cleaning of the thermal print head;
• and
• a controller configured to control the printer to perform printing and to perform cleaning of the thermal print head by executing the program;
• wherein the controller starts cleaning of a thermal print head when a predetermined condition is satisfied, selects a cleaning method based on at least one the satisfied condition and previously stored information, and cleans the thermal print head by driving at least one of heating elements, included in a plurality of recording elements constituting the thermal print head, according to the selected cleaning method.