METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING IMAGE DATA REPRESENTING INTEGRATED IMAGE

An image plane (IP) is divided into a plurality of strip regions (R.sub.1 -R.sub.11). Inputted are image data of image elements to be integrated on the image plane, i.e., images of characters, diagrams and pictures. The strip regions are serially selected and it is determined what image elements are included in the selected strip region. When the selected region includes characters and/or diagrams only, these image elements are integrated in a high resolution and in 1 bit for each pixel. When the selected region includes pictures only, on the other hand, the images of pictures are integrated in a low resolution and in 8 bits for each pixel. Further, if the region includes all the types of the image elements, the integration of the image elements are conducted at a high resolution and in 8 bits for each pixel.