METHOD OF COMPRESSING AND EXPANDING DOT-MATRIX CHARACTER

PCT No. PCT/JP89/00965 Sec. 371 Date Mar. 21, 1991 Sec. 102(e) Date Mar. 21, 1991 PCT Filed Sep. 22, 1989 PCT Pub. No. WO90/03272 PCT Pub. Date Apr. 5, 1990.A character compression-decompression method for printers in which dots are added before compression of a character so as to generate a character in which the same dot pattern continues. The character is compressed and then is stored in a character geernator. Upon printing the character, the compressed character is read from the character generator and is then expanded so as to return the compressed character to the character before compression. The dots added when the character was compressed are removed from the expanded character. Thus, a character which cannot be compressed because the same pattern does not continue therein can be compressed by a simple compression method, and a large number of dot matrix characters can be stored in the character generator.