CHARACTER INPUT SYSTEM CAPABLE OF INPUTTING CHARACTERS IN TWO WAYS AND OCR USED THEREFOR

摘要

A host computer and a keyboard are connected to an image processing unit which recognizes characters in image information read by an image reader so that characters can be selectively entered in one of two ways. One is such that characters recognized based on image information read by the image reader are entered; and the other is such that characters are entered through the keyboard connected to the host computer as ordinarily. When characters are entered through the keyboard, the keyboard is connected to the host computer through the image processing unit. Contrarily, when the image reader is operated, signals representing the character recognition results are transmitted to the host computer so that the signals can be distinguished from the signals from the keyboard. Since the image reader has a grip section suitable for manual operation, the reader can smoothly scan an original.