To provide an article testing method capable of facilitating initial setting in article testing on a conveyor so as to solve problems in initial setting including determination of a testing method, setting of a determination value and the like for inline testing of the article on the conveyor such as requiring a lot of setting time and a great number of test running needing trial flow of a lot of articles on the conveyor.

A plurality of testing methods and a plurality of determination values are previously prepared, and on each of the methods and the values, quality determination is carried out for finding a fraction defective for each of them, while an image giving different results for the respective determination values is matched with a condition and retracted and correction is carried after its validity is checked by visual inspection. Subsequently, a testing method and its determination value closest to an optimum fraction defective are selected and decided so as to be set as an initial value, and then, inspection is carried out.