Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating an ideographic character in response to an operator input. The apparatus includes an input device which generates a series of input signals in responses to an input sequence of writing strokes corresponding to identifiable constituent characteristics of an ideographic character contained in a set of idiographic characters. A processor stores a library of character representations, each character representation in the library of character representations represents a respective character of the set of ideographic characters and each character representation being identified according to predetermined constituent characteristics of the represented ideographic character. The processor is responsive to the input signals for selecting a character representation from the library of character representations. The processor upon selection of a character representation provides the selected character representation as an output signal.