Patent US 4,122,533

A character generating system is provided for a photocomposition machine to display alpha/numeric symbols on a CRT for any language selected from a group of languages. The system includes a character generator memory for each symbol and control means which selects a predetermined set of memories for each language in a manner that symbols common to two or more languages are provided from the same character generator memory, whereby the total memory required for all symbols of the group of languages is minimized.