PURPOSE: To provide kerning processing capable of being adapted even to any character combination.

CONSTITUTION: A kerning operation controller 1 applies thickening processing of predetermined quantity to the faces of both of a reference character and an objective character on the basis of the reference interval stored in a reference interval setting memory 5. The moving quantity up to a position where the thickening patterns of both characters come into contact with each other is calculated on a thickening pattern row developing memory 16. Both characters are allowed to further approach each other from the position where the thickening patterns of them come into contact with each other so that the thickening patterns of both of them are overlapped each other to calculate a pattern overlap area and the ratio of the pattern overlap area to a character frame overlap area is calculated as adjacent intensity. Since the objective character is arranged closely on the basis of the correction quantity due to the calculated moving quantity and the adjacent intensity, the kerning processing corresponding to the degree of the visual effect of the characters is performed.