To make it possible to exactly sort postal items even if a recognition section selects a plurality of recognition candidates recognizing the largest number of characters.

An image input section 1 picks up the image of the postal items and outputs the images of the postal items. The recognition section 2 outputs the plural recognition candidates from these images. An address priority setting section 5 judges the sequence of the relative postal quantity corresponding to the addresses in accordance with a sorting assignment table 6 assigning the sorting boxes to the addresses and previously forms an address priority table 7 by setting the priority. A candidate selection section 3 selects the recognition candidates having the highest address priority set by the address priority setting section 5 from the plural recognition candidates in case when the largest number of the characters are recognized among the plural recognition candidates outputted by the recognition section 2 if such recognition candidates exist in a plurality. A sorting section 4 sorts the postal items of the postal code numbers of the recognition candidates selected by the candidate selection section 3 into the sorting boxes corresponding to these postal code numbers.