termed the 34 personality 34 of the printer and is the software which places data into character cache 26 requests a search for data or deletes specific data or clears the entire character cache 26 when character cache 26 is not full of data any cache request from the printer 39 s personality is honored size permitting when character cache 26 is filled character caching procedure 23 comes into play and takes over in deciding which data to replace when a request is made character data is stored in the form shown in fig2 each character record in character cache 26 includes a character id field 40 which is a unique identifier that enables a search routine to determine whether the identified character is or is not stored within character cache 26 a further field area 42 includes a page designation that indicates the highest page number of pages being processed within printer 10 which will require character data 44 character data 44 may be either full character raster data or may be outline data which is yet to be rasterized it is preferred that the character data in field 44 be fully rasterized data during a print operation cpu 12 in conjunction with the printer personality software places a call for a specific character to be used in the print action.