a desired grade can be selected in addition the width and pitch of a change can also be set on the other hand when at least two signals represent portions each represented by any one of the character signal the shade signal and the outline signal are input the decoder 309 selects one of the outline the character and the shade in a priority order of 34 outline gt character gt shade 34 the selector 310 selects a corresponding one of the color rams 301 to 303 at this time x character shade outline color y 0 and r 255 are selected the operation unit 314 selects equation 2 to obtain c x therefore only a 34 character shade outline 34 portion is painted in a 34 character shade outline 34 color note that the character signal can be generated as follows in addition to generation in an external circuit that is an nd neutral density signal is generated by the output masking circuit 206 fig2 connected to the input to the image input vin and the nd signal is input to the character generation circuit 316 a character signal is generated by the character generation circuit 316 in accordance with the nd signal alternatively a character.