PURPOSE: To enable a complicatedly decorated character and an intermediately colored or a faintly colored character to be printed by a method wherein a pattern to be used for decoration is assigned from a plurality of kinds of a pattern, and an AND of its pattern data and a font data is taken, which is printed based on a data corresponding to the decorated.

CONSTITUTION: In the case where a character processor 2 receives tentatively a character code of 'A' and receives a command of a first pattern 16 and a second pattern 17 as a pattern to be used for decoration, the character proces sor 2 fetches the first pattern 16 and the second pattern 17 from a first pattern memory 6 and a second pattern memory 7, and sends them to AND circuits 8, 9. A conjunction (AND) of a font 15 and the first pattern 16 is taken with an AND circuit 8. A conjunction (AND) of the font 15 and the second pattern 17 is taken with an AND circuit 9. Each bit map data is expanded either in a first pattern image memory 10 or in a second pattern image memory 11. Printing is performed by a video data from either the first pattern image mem ory or the second pattern image memory.