FONT COMPRESSION AND RETRIEVAL

摘要

Method and apparatus for compressing data representing a set of symbols such that each symbol (12) of the set can be separately accessed and decompressed. Each symbol of the set of symbols is encoded (63) in the form of a two-part code wherein a first part of the code is common for all encoded symbols and a second part of the code encodes the data representing a symbol. An identifier is given for each symbol for permitting each encoded symbol to be separately accessed and decompressed. The invention is particularly useful for storing large fonts such as a Chinese or Japanese character set.