PURPOSE: To improve the efficiency, by forming a mask for each character with a pattern signal, deciding a row including character information, detecting the character mask and performing detection and segment with a pattern signal corresponding to the character mask.

CONSTITUTION: The 1st scanning section 11 scans over a predetermined eye field range for a mail P to obtain a pattern signal, and a character row detector 12 detects the character row to be read and a eye field position set signal setting the reading eye field position of the 2nd scanning section 13 is outputted. The 2nd scanning section outputs a pattern signal of the set eye field range based on this eye field set signal. A character detection and segment device 14 performs detection and segment of the specific character pattern with the pattern signal from the 2nd scanning section. A character recognizing section 15 performs character recognition with the detected and segment character pattern.