Abstract: A small hand-held scanner that scans text in a line at a time operates in conjunction with a system that deskews images of symbols having a non-linear baseline to thereby flatten waviness of the baseline associated with such scanning. A program determines a boundary for each of the symbols, including maximum and minimum height and width positions of the symbols. Any of average height, average width, maximum height, maximum width, and average change in height of a bottom of each symbol relative to that of a neighboring symbol is also determined. A threshold is used to delineate between a change of the baseline that is due to random hand movement versus a change in the baseline that is due to a descender, where the descender generates a greater change, and all of the symbols that are to be on the baseline are shifted to a single flat baseline.