Abstract: A computer system with an image reader and nerual network is provided for determining whether an image of text has been generated by a machine or by hand. This serves the useful purpose of allowing one to use speciallized recognition techiques that are more suited to one form of printing, thus achieving a higher recognition accuracy than by using a single recognition technique for both types of printing. The method is based on the premise that the spatial spectra for an image of machine text will have more higher frequency components than one generated by hand, because of the nonregular, nonuniform slant of the handprint. The method proposed generates this spectra by convolving spatial templates with vertical histograms from each line of text, and uses a neural network to classify the resulting spectra.