A hand-held manually sweeping copier is manually swept over a medium so as to obtain image data corresponding to image information on the medium via an image sensor of a CCD type or the like. The image data obtained via the image sensor is arranged in order, in accordance with the sweeping direction of the copier, and stored in a memory, the addressing of which is controlled in accordance with the sweeping direction of the copier. In addition, the copier prints the image data on a printing medium, i.e., a plain paper, while the copier is being manually swept across the printing medium.