A character generator is formed by a microcomputer and has a structure in which character structure information including radical structure information representing a kind and a position/size of a radical of kanji or like characters and each stroke information other than the radical is stored for each character code and for each typeface in a ROM. Each stroke information of the radical based on the radical structure information is stored for each typeface in the ROM. and contour information corresponding to the stroke information is stored for each typeface in the ROM. A CPU sequentially reads and positions the stroke information such as the radical corresponding to the typeface, and assigns the contour information to generate a character pattern. Consequently, a data capacity can be reduced to generate, according to the kind of the typeface, a character pattern of high quality which takes a stroke shape of the radical and a balance thereof into consideration.