PURPOSE: To embody the automatic adjustment of the character spacing suitable for the forms of characters in order to make the characters to be printed easily readable by arranging the characters with good balance with a computerized typesetting system, etc.

CONSTITUTION: Fuzzy inference is used to judge the magnitude of the character spacing (S8) by the characteristic quantity (S7) of the form of the characters calculated from the bit map data (S2) of the characters. The fresh character spacing is then so calculated (S9 or S10) as to shorten the character spacing in the case of the large spacing and to open the character spacing in the case of the small spacing. This adjustment is repetitively executed by the prescribed number of times (S11). The character spacing is so adjusted (S5 and S13) as to prevent the crossing of the characters if the characters are crossed.