PURPOSE: To decrease the data correcting time, by displaying the candidate characters which are referred to in a character recognizing process on a CRT for a character decided unreadable by an OCR, and selecting the correct answer data among the candidate characters by means of a light pen.

CONSTITUTION: A character is scanned optically by a reading device of an OCR (not shown in the figure) and fed to a CPU after photoelectric conversion and recognition. The CPU performs an operation to display 2 characters, marks, etc. on a CRT1. If an unreadable character 3 exists, a mark "?" is displayed on the CRT1. Then a cursor 4 is set at the position of "?", and at the same time the candidate characters 6 which is referred to in a character recognizing process is displayed together with a picture 5 of the unreadable character. An operator looks at the display 5 or the characters on a slip and selects a correct data "KU" out of candidate characters 6. This correct data is fed by means of a light pen 11 and informed to the OCR via a control mechanism 12 to correct "?" on the CRT1. This facilitates an easy correction of data and decreases the data correcting time.