37. In a printing system having a processing unit which controls the retrieval of individual stored characters from a font storage memory of a font storage means as a plurality of words each having a plurality of pixels with each character having a plurality of lines and the storage of the retrieved characters in a page memory of a raster storage means for storing a page of characters to be printed by a printing means, an addressing system for generating the addresses of locations in the page memory at which the plurality of words of each retrieved character are to be stored comprising: (a) address calculating means, disposed at the processing unit, for calculating the absolute address for storing the first word of each character retrieved from the character memory and transmitting the calculated absolute address to the raster storage means; and (b) means for controlling the storage of each retrieved word of each character in the page memory at a specified absolute address, the absolute address for storing the first word of each retrieved character being the absolute address transmitted from the processing unit and all remaining absolute addresses of each retrieved character being calculated by an absolute address calculating means which operates independently of the operation of the processing unit.
37. In a printing system having a processing unit which controls the retrieval of individual stored characters from a font storage memory of a font storage means as a plurality of words each having a plurality of pixels with each character having a plurality of lines and the storage of the retrieved characters in a page memory of a raster storage means for storing a page of characters to be printed by a printing means, an addressing system for generating the addresses of locations in the page memory at which the plurality of words of each retrieved character are to be stored comprising: (a) address calculating means, disposed at the processing unit, for calculating the absolute address for storing the first word of each character retrieved from the character memory and transmitting the calculated absolute address to the raster storage means; and (b) means for controlling the storage of each retrieved word of each character in the page memory at a specified absolute address, the absolute address for storing the first word of each retrieved character being the absolute address transmitted from the processing unit and all remaining absolute addresses of each retrieved character being calculated by an absolute address calculating means which operates independently of the operation of the processing unit. 41. A printing system in accordance with claim 37 wherein: (a) the processing unit calculates the number of words of each character which are to be sent to the page memory for storage; and (b) the addressing system further comprises a counter which is loaded with the calculated total of words transmitted from the processing unit, the counter being decremented by one each time a word is written in the page memory and signalling the processing unit when the counter has counted to zero.