Patent ID: 6859556

Claim:
A word recognizing apparatus, comprising: a listing unit storing a list of a candidate word comprising a plurality of characters; a dictionary unit storing feature amounts of the plurality of characters; an extracting unit extracting the feature amount from a recognition target by a process in which the recognition target is not required to be divided into units even if the recognition target comprises a plurality of units; a generating unit referring to the list of the candidate word stored in said listing unit, and dynamically generating the feature amount of only the candidate word registered in the list by a composition operation using the feature amounts of the plurality of characters stored in said dictionary unit during a recognition process for the recognition target, wherein the feature amount of only the candidate word and the plurality of characters and the composition operation are determined such that the feature amount of only the candidate word dynamically generated by the composition operation matches the feature amount extracted from the recognition target by said extracting unit; a collating unit collating the dynamically generated feature amount of only the candidate word with the feature amount extracted from the recognition target, and outputting a recognition result; an inputting unit inputting an image as the recognition target; and an extracting unit performing a one-dimensional gradating conversion in a direction perpendicular to a connecting direction of characters for a direction code histogram of a contour line in each of a plurality of small areas in an inputted image provided that no gradating conversion is performed in the connecting direction of the characters, and extracting a direction code histogram series obtained from a conversion result as the feature amount of the recognition target.