PURPOSE: To reduce a necessary memory amount, by fetching a feature of the outline shape of a character pattern seen from several directions from the external and internal structure, and sorting the character pattern.

CONSTITUTION: An input character pattern 1 is made binary by scanning, and it is stored in a memory 4. A circumscribed frame of a character pattern seen from the upper, lower, right and left directions is detected by a detector 5, its feature pattern is made, and its matching processing with various standard patterns is carried out in a sorting circuit 7. At the same time, a circumscribed frame of a character pattern seen in the slanting direction from four corners is detected by a detector 8, its feature pattern is made, and it is compared with various standard patterns and is sorted. Based upon the kinds of proposed characters which have been sorted by the sorting circuits 7 and 10, the aggregate is selected and sorted by a pattern sorting device 11. Thus character patterns can be sorted with good precision.