PURPOSE: To minimize the reduction of the rate of recognition in a range for preventing erroneous recognition by dividing the conditions of handling into the case of completely describing a 'patchy line segment' and the case of not describing it, and executing a figure recognition processing concerning the respective cases when that line segment is existent in the image data of a recognizing figure.

CONSTITUTION: When the 'patchy line segment' is existent (line segments 11 and 12), first and second judging means respectively execute the figure recognition respectively concerning the case of describing that line segment at the describing position (namely when the line segments 11 and 12 are regarded as a line segment 13) and the case of not describing it (namely when there is only a line segment 14 not describing the line segment 12). Only when only one relevant character is existent according to the figure recognition processings of these two means, a figure '1' can be judged as the result of the first judging means executing the character recognition with the line segments 11 and 12 as the line segment 13 and since there is no relevant character only with the line segment 14, however, it can be judged as the result that there is only one relevant character.