A recognition apparatus of this invention for recognizing sorting information as a character string written within a cellophane region of a paper-like material extracts edge components according to a differential image based on an image of light and shade of the paper-like material, determines a cellophane frame based on the edge components and recognizes the character string within the thus determined cellophane frame as an address. Thus, the cellophane region in which the address used as the sorting information is written can be correctly extracted and occurrence of erroneous recognition of the sorting information and erroneous sorting of the paper-like material can be prevented.
