Image-forming method and device

An image-forming device comprising:

• outline font-storing means for storing an outline font;
• conversion mode-defining means for defining a plurality of conversion modes to be selectively employed for converting character codes to character image data items each representative of a character image based on an outline font, said conversion modes including at least one partial conversion mode for carrying out conversion of each of said character codes such that only a required portion of each of said character image data items corresponding to said each of said character codes is obtained when at least one of at least one fully-converting condition peculiar to each of said conversion modes is not fulfilled in converting said each of said character codes;
• conversion mode-setting means for setting a selected one of said conversion modes to an actual conversion mode;
• image-forming range-setting means for setting an image-forming range in a whole image represented by whole image data to be created by converting at least one character code to character image data and arranging said character image data;
• and
• partial image data-forming means for forming partial image data representative of part or a whole of said whole image by conversion of each character code in said actual conversion mode, said each character code belonging to said at least one character code and corresponding to character image data representative of a character image part or a whole of which lies within said image-forming range, and arrangement of image data resulting from said conversion within a predetermined partial image data-forming area.