This study describes thermal conduction of papers in a Direct Thermal Printer (DTP). DTP produces an image by heating thermal papers using a thermal head. The print quality of DTP is significantly dependent on thermal conduction phenomena of the printing paper.Our research targets to optimize a printing process of DTP in order to reduce the power consumption while maintaining the printing quality. In this report, our special attention is paid to investigate the thermal conduction process of the printing paper and the thermal head. Especially the effects of thermophysical properties and contact resistance between the printing paper and the thermal head on the temperature response of the paper were investigated. Thermophysical properties of several papers were measured. Moreover, in order to evaluate contact thermal resistance between the paper and the thermal head, a transient thermal network analysis is performed and we estimated the contact resistance of several types of test papers. Finally, we investigated the effects of the thermophysical properties and the contact resistance on the temperature response of the paper by using the thermal network analysis. It is found that transient temperature response of the paper is strongly dependent on the thermophysical properties and the existence of the contact resistance. To achieve an optimization of DTP process, the accurate estimation of thermophysical properties and contact resistance should be strongly needed.