Character recognition system for reading a document edited with handwritten symbols

Claim 1

A character recognition system in combination with a document having textual material thereon, said character recognition system including means for scanning said document and means responsive to signals from said means for scanning for recognizing characters scanned by said means for scanning, said document including handwritten characters which are each representative of alterations to the textual material, all of said handwritten characters being taken from a font of characters generated from a basic symbol which consists of an elongated longitudinal bar having a first pair of transverse bars At one end of said elongated bar which extend to opposite sides of said elongated bar, a second pair of transverse bars disposed centrally of said elongated bar which extend to opposite sides of said elongated bar and a third pair of transverse bars at the other end of said elongated bar which extend to opposite sides of said elongated bar, each of said characters in said font including the presence of said elongated bar and a combination of the presence and absence of said transverse bars different from the other symbols of said font, all of said handwritten characters including at least said elongated bar, said elongated bar constituting the entire longitudinal extent of each of said characters whereby said character recognition system is normalized in accordance with the longitudinal extent of said elongated bar, said character recognition system thereby reading both said textual material and said handwritten characters representative of alterations to said textual material.