PURPOSE: To store an image data concerning a lot of business cards even in a medium having small storage capacity as well by abandoning an image data having blank information continuing longitudinally and laterally for more than a prescribed amount from a read image data.

CONSTITUTION: The image data is read from the business card by an image reader 11, and this read image data is temporarily written in a storage device 12. Then, this image data stored in the storage device 12 is divided into blocks containing significant data such as characters or symbols, etc., to be really stored and preserved. In this case, the image data to be written and preserved in the storage device 12 is only the image data in each block, and the image data of blank parts occupying the most of the business card are abandoned. Thus, the storage medium having the small storage capacity is utilized as the storage device 12, and the image data concerning a lot of business cards is stored.