US Patent 7149352 Image processing device, program product and system

A computer 10 having a function as an image processing device includes an output format judgment unit that makes a judgment after recognizing character code for character images in the input image data whether the character image should be converted into character code data using the degree of character recognition certainty Cn as well as the degree of character continuity Pn, which is the degree of continuity between the character image and neighboring character images. The degree of character continuity is obtained by detecting the distance from the neighboring characters, the difference in font size, the difference in font type, the length of the character string, and the color difference.