PURPOSE: To easily set segmenting points for every character even if the characters encroach with each other by setting the segmenting points by searching the characters for every row and setting the search starting point of the next character at the position where a black picture element appears first.

CONSTITUTION: An initial segment line is set in the coordinate '0' of the picture element in the leftmost end of the respective rows. The black picture element appearing at first in the respectie rows are detected in the advancing direction of a character string from the segmenting points (a-d)) previous by one at every row. The minimum value (seventh row) of the coordinate of the black picture element is found and the position corresponding to the minimum value is defined as the search starting point in a first row. White picture elements on the left side of the minimum value of the black picture element by one are set artificially to be left ends h-l for searching the respective rows and the black picture elements are temporarily set. The extraction processing of the segment points in the respective rows of one character is executed, and it is discriminated whether a system returns to a row end or not. Namely, the accurate segment point can be set by repeating a simple processing for vertically shifting the respective rows and for searching the picture elements in a right direction.