In the optical character reading apparatus having an upper unit, lower unit, and discharge unit, the upper unit and discharge unit are swingably connected to the lower unit at its pivot. In case where paper jamming or the like occurs during a read operation, the upper unit is swung to expose the conveying path. In transportation of the apparatus, the discharge unit is swung to cover the upper unit. Further, desired characters and the like are printed on the processed documents to easily classify them.

A character string region extracting apparatus comprises an extracting section for extracting a plurality of primitives from image information in which a character and a graphic pattern other than the character are mixedly present, a character string candidate region forming section for generating character candidate regions from the primitives and connecting the character candidate regions, thereby forming at least one character string candidate region, a character recognizing section for subjecting the character candidate regions included in the character string candidate region to character recognition, and a character string region extracting section for extracting a character string region from the character string candidate region by the character recognition.

A cache is used to provide additional information to a recognition system about what words are likely to be used in a current context. Words are added to the cache only if they are explicitly corrected by the user. If the user forgets to correct (or postpones correcting) a recognition error, nothing is added to the cache, and therefore, there is no negative impact on the recognition system.

The price verification device typically includes a barcode scanner, an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reader and an optional key pad. To verify a price for an item, a user such as a consumer will scan a barcode printed on a label associated with the item using the barcode scanner, and read the price for the item as printed on the label using the OCR reader. The consumer can then optionally input a quantity for the item using the key pad. Thereafter, the final price for the item will be stored within the device. When the consumer checks-out, he/she can compare the stored price for the item to a register-based price as determined by a (cash) register.

A programmable digital bit pattern detector detects the presence of a variable length, variable content M-bit serial bit pattern that is sequentially repeated in a digital bit stream during some prescribed time constraint, and indicates whether successive repetitions of the pattern satisfy a prescribed criterion, before declaring that the pattern has been successfully acquired. For this purpose, a variable length shift register is programmed with a copy of the pattern. During initial acquisition, in response to a match between a respective bit of the digital bit stream and the content of a selected stage of the shift register, the contents of the shift register are shifted by one bit stage; in response to a mismatch, clocking of the shift register is inhibited for that bit. Count signals are generated in association with successive pluralities of the M bits of the digital bit stream, and an "up/down" counter is incremented or decremented by the count signals, in accordance with whether successive bits of the digital bit stream match the copy of the bit pattern being clocked through the shift register. A maximum pattern match code representative of a prescribed bit error rate and time interval is programmed into a comparator and is compared with the contents of the "up/down" counter. The comparator generates a `pattern acquired` output, in response to the value of the "up/down" counter reaching the value of the maximum pattern match code.