CHARACTER RECOGNITION DEVICE

The key character selection means selects a character candidate as a standard when evaluating the size information of the extracted area of other character candidates. The doubtful character selection means evaluates size information of the extracted areas of other character candidates making the size information of the extracted area of the key character the standard, and selects the character candidate having deviated size information as a doubtful character. The character reconfirmation means makes the size information of the extracted area of the key character the standard and infers the size information of the extracted area of the relevant character candidate for each character candidate selected by the doubtful character selection means, and carried out extraction of the relevant character candidate by the input word image based on this size information, and carries out character recognition by matching the external frame of the extracted area with the character frames of the template of the character recognition dictionary.