PURPOSE: To provide the Roman letter recognizing device which improves the operability of letter input by recognizing a document of low quality which contains contacting letters and blurring letters at a high speed.

CONSTITUTION: This Roman letter recognizing device consists of a means which segments a row area after segmenting a document area, and then estimates the letter width of the letter with the largest letter width according to the height of the row, a means which segments a letter area almost to the estimated letter width and recognizes the area, a means 11 which stores the height of the letter area based upon a reference letter, the position (letter position feature) based upon a reference line, and image information when the recognition result is acceptable, and a means 10 which limits an object letters to be segment again in the letter area according to a letter information dictionary 9 containing letter position features of all letters, superposes the stored letter image and segments the letter again, and performs recognition when the recognition result is rejected.