HANDWRITING RECOGNIZER WITH ESTIMATION OF REFERENCE LINES

The system of the present invention has a reference character database, which stores a multiplicity of reference characters, and a feature extractor which extracts shape information for each input character. For each reference character, the database lists shape information and reference line measurements indicating how reference lines pass through it. For example, the reference line measurements can be percentages of a height of a bounding box which bounds each reference and/or input character. In some embodiments, the input characters are collected into a stroke buffer and in other embodiments, they are collected into a line buffer. In all embodiments, the reference line estimation is performed for a series of input characters, whether as a full line of characters or as a collection of strokes.