Abstract: A method for disconnecting character strings from compressed image data comprising the steps of: scanning data blocks representative of the photographic/graphic data portion to detect the initial and last y-coordinates of the continuous text data portion, accumulating the number of pixel lines representative of the text data portion, and calculating the character string width upon detecting a profile line. Based on the accumulated number of pixel lines representative of the text data portion, a discrimination is made as to whether a character string is connected to the scanned block. When a character string is connected only to one of left and right sides of the data block, the connected character string is disconnected forcedly by creating a new block corresponding to the character string, based on the position information of each text data portion.