PURPOSE: To reduce a processing time required for developing Japanese algorithm fonts in a KANJI (Chinese character) printer and to speed up printing by storing characters to be frequently used in a Japanese sentence in a cache memory.

CONSTITUTION: The algorithm font memory 3 stores plural sets of algorithm font data. This memory is provided with fonts of Ming type and Gothic type. Respective fonts are divided into a group HIRAGANA (cursive form of Japanese syllabary) and KATAKANA (square form of Japanese syllabary) to be an example of the 1st group and a group including KANJI to be an example of the 2nd group and other codes or characters. The characters of the 1st group in the memory 3 are allocated to the addresses of a concentrated prescribed range. In a Japanese graphic character code table e.g. HIRAGANA and KATAKANA are respectively concentrically allocated to the 4th and 5th sections. Thereby, whether a character belongs to the 1st group or not can be simply decided by observing whether the value of a character code in included within the prescribed range or not.