PURPOSE: To shorten processing time required for character recognition by controlling a switch so that character information is applied from a photoelectric conversion part to a slice selection part when the photoelectric conversion part outputs the character information for the initial line.

CONSTITUTION: Characters written on paper e.g. to be read out are read out by the photoelectric conversion part 1, the conversion part 1 converts the characters into an electric signal indicating the density of the characters and outputs the signal as character information. A page memory 3 successively stores the character information outputted from the conversion part 1. At that time, a control part 2 controls the switch 4 so that the character information from the conversion part 1 is applied to a slice selection part 5 at the time of outputting character information for the 1st line from the conversion part 1, and at the time of outputting the character information for the 2nd line or after from the conversion part 1, character information from the page memory 3 is applied to the selection part 5. Consequently, the processing time necessary for character recognition can be shortened as a whole.