A plotting device for typewriters or office machines of similar construction which comprises a motor driven carriage; a record carrier; a print head; a ribbon in a cassette; a reversible, controllable drive motor for moving the record carrier up and down; the motor driven carriage being movable along the record carrier; the ribbon being housed within the carriage with a portion of the ribbon extending outside of the carriage for being contacted by the print head; the print head being operatively connected to the carriage so that the print head can strike the ribbon and produce a full set of alpha-numeric characters on the record carrier; an X-Y plotting mechanism equpped with styli and being disposed on the cassette; and a control system for moving the styli from a detent position into an operating position with respect to the record carrier.

Disclosed is a pen type recording device for performing recording by relative movements of pen means and recording paper in the state where the tip end of a pen is brought into contact with the recording paper, which comprises a pen holding member for holding the pen in such a manner that the pen can project toward the recording paper, and a rotary lift member rotatably supported on the pen holding member to lift up the rear side of the pen held on the pen holding member by the rotation thereof. In this pen type recording device, the operation of exchanging pen is greatly facilitated, and movement of pen holding means across a recording paper can be performed very smoothly.

Several line drawing devices to permit drawing horizontal and vertical lines on typewriters are known. The fact that they are rarely encountered in practice, should be sufficient proof that they were not found to be satisfactory and greatly impede the typing process. These drawbacks are overcome by the invention in that the ribbon cassette is provided with a receptacle for a colored writing implement which, in one end position, resiliently rests on the record carrier so as to produce drawn lines and is arranged to be movable and arrestable in another end position to put it out of operation. A significant advantage resides in the fact that the colored writing implement can here be attached to the cassette at a location where the typing process is not interfered with. The colored writing implement can easily be exchanged by removing the ribbon cassette. The ribbon cassette together with the colored writing implement permits easy production of drawn lines in the horizontal, vertical or any other direction. Exchange of the colored writing implement can be effected without any particular skill on the part of the operator.

A printing apparatus having a first printing unit provided with a plurality of type elements and adapted to print characters and symbols and a second printing unit capable of plotting optionally, graphs and figures, and capable of attaining both high quality printing of characters and symbols and high-quality plotting of graphs and figures, and with good speed.

A pen type recording apparatus employing pressure-sensitive recording paper, comprising a pen member which has a case that holds a ball rotatably at its tip and that contains therein a lubricant for smoothing the rotation of the ball, a pen holder which holds the pen member in a manner capable of protruding it onto the pressure-sensitive recording paper so as to press the ball against the recording paper, and a driving mechanism which moves the pen holder in the widthwise direction of the recording paper.