PURPOSE: To make operation easy and improve work efficiency by reading a plurality of manuscripts to be processed sequentially for processing.

CONSTITUTION: Two process modes are provided. In the 1st process mode, character and image in a sheet of manuscript are read by scanning and character and image corresponding to the character and image in the one sheet of manuscript are processed by scanning on a sheet of original paper. In the 2nd process mode, characters and images in 2 or more manuscripts are read by scanning sequentially and characters and images corresponding to the characters and images in the manuscripts are processed by scanning sequentially in a sheet of original paper. In an execution of the 2nd process mode, when a dimension in scanning direction of a short manuscript is equal to or less than a predetermined value, processing operation for the original paper is substantially interrupted once in response to a completion of the reading operation of a preceding short manuscript, and the processing operation for the original paper is restarted in response to a start of the reading operation of a succeeding manuscript. Thus, even when the characters and images are deviated in a part on the manuscript, plural characters and images can be processed on the original paper having a size corresponding to the size o the manuscript.