PURPOSE: To eliminate the need for the movement of eyes between a display and an input part, and to reduce a mental burden on an operator, by touching an indication part when a character is to be selected or when an indication for other operation is to be made, thus performing input operation which corresponds to display contents at the touched position.

CONSTITUTION: A transparent plastic panel is put on the entire surface of the display screen 1 of a CRT, etc., and the touch panel is touched with a finger to input data at the touched part. On this display screen 1, a KANA (Japanese syllabary) input area 2, a KANJI (Chinese character) retrieval key area 3, and a KANJI retrieval area 4 are arranged. When the area 2 on the panel is touched, a character corresponding to the touched part is inputted as it is and then displayed in an input monitor area 5. For KANJI input, the area 3 is touched to specify KANJI input, and a character corresponding to KANJI in the area 2 is inputted and displayed in an area 4. A display part in the area 4 is touched to input KANJI selectively, and the KANJI is displayed in the area 5.