Abstract: A technique for optical recognition of a designated character, which forms alternating dark and light bands from an analysis of as many as seven sub-regions of the character. Only the dark-and-light sequence of bands, not the relative or absolute sizes of these bands, is used to identify the character. The dark-and-light sequences found for the designated character are each compared with the corresponding sequences for a group of candidate characters available in a data base. Using a binary decision tree analysis, one or more candidate characters is identified whose sequences match the corresponding sequences for the designated character. If more than one candidate character is thus identified, any of seven additional processing techniques can be used to reduce the number of surviving candidate characters to a single character.