Patent ID: 8810809

Claim:
A character output apparatus comprising: an intermediate character information generating section that generates intermediate character information indicating a single certain character, wherein the intermediate character information is formed by a number of element information pieces, and each element information piece has a start point and an end point in an X-axis direction in a two-dimensional coordinate system for characters; an intermediate character information modification section that performs modification processing for changing a thickness of the certain character onto each element information piece of the generated intermediate character information, by changing the start point and the end point of each element information piece in accordance with a modification amount; and a first character output section that outputs the certain character based on the changed start point and the changed end point of each element information piece, wherein the intermediate character information modification section performs the modification processing of thickening the certain character, the intermediate character information modification section has an information amount compression section, the information amount compression section determines whether first and second ones of the element information pieces obtained after thickening the certain character are successive to each other, the start point and the end point of each element information piece is changed independent of any change in the start point and the end point of other element information pieces, each element information piece has position information in a Y-axis direction in the two-dimensional coordinate system for characters, and the intermediate character information modification section duplicates or deletes in the Y-axis direction each element information piece in accordance with the modification amount, to change the thickness of the certain character in the Y-axis; wherein the intermediate character information modification section includes an information amount compression section, the information amount compression section determines as to whether first and second ones of the element information pieces obtained after thickening the certain character overlap with each other, the information amount compression section in case of the determination indicating the first one and the second one overlap, merges the first one and the second one into one element information piece so as to decrease the number of element information pieces, the information amount compression section identifies a start point and an end point of the merged element information piece, and as for the first and the second ones, the first character output section outputs the certain character based on the merged element information piece.