1. In an electronic graphic display system capable of displaying characters on a display screen, a method of generating characters by interconnecting a series of stroke-vectors, each stroke-vector being characterized by at least a plurality of character-shape dependent stroke attributes and a plurality of character-field-size dependent stroke attributes, said method comprising the steps of: receiving a first data signal defining a character type, character field dimensions, and a character drawing point; retrieving from a first memory a plurality of encoded binary valued stroke-drawing directives for the character type defined by said first data signal; retrieving from a second memory encoded initial values for each character-shape dependent stroke attribute, said initial values being independent of the character type; decoding said encoded stroke-drawing directives and said encoded initial values and sequentially applying the decoded drawing directives to the decoded initial values thereby generating a series of stroke signals representing a series of interconnected stroke-vectors; scaling the length of each stroke-vector so that the resulting character image is scaled to the character field dimensions defined by said first data signal; and converting each scaled stroke-vector into a series of signals to generate start/stop positions, of each interconnected stroke-vector, said series of signals defining a character mask for the character type defined by said first data signal.