PURPOSE: To omit the storage and discrimination of character entry information every business form by scanning binary picture data by a window having double frames, discriminating and storing the number of black picture elements in an area separated by the frames and controlling the segmentation of a character pattern by the output of the stored contents.

CONSTITUTION: An observation part 1 has plural CCD conversion elements arrayed straight and the business form is read out by regarding the arrayed direction as the main scanning direction to observe the density of each unit area. The output of the observation part 1 is binary-coded by white and black elements in a binary coding circuit 2 and the picture is scanned 3 by the double-frame window constituted by the inner and outer frames having prescribed size and the number of black elements in each area separated by frames is detected 4. The character entry area on the business form is discriminated 5 by the number of detected black picture elements and the contents are stored in a memory 6. A segmenting circuit 8 segments and outputs a character pattern stored in a memory 7 as one character under control by the output of the memory 6.