PURPOSE: To reduce memory capacity and to recognize a pattern having inclination as well by rotating and moving either input or standard coordinates and executing comparison when the input pattern of the coordinates in each point to constitute handwritten and inputted character and graphics is compared with a standard pattern, which is stored in advance, and recognized.

CONSTITUTION: A rotational angle is set to 15° and 30°, etc., for example, in advance with considering computation quantity and computing speed and the values of sinθ and cosθ to rotational angles θ are stored as a constant to a table in an inclination conversion part 17. Next, when the handwriting of the character and graphic is inputted by an input pen 10 and a coordinate input device 11, this handwriting is written through a stroke detection part 12, normalization part 13 and feature extraction part 14 to an input pattern memory 15 and read to the inclination conversion part 17. After that the input pattern from the conversion part 17 and the pattern, which is stored to a standard pattern memory 16 are positioned at the rotational angles 0°, 15° and 30° and compared by a comparison part 18. Then, the obtained result of recognition is sent to a control part 19.