Abstract: After cutting out each character from an image of a character string to be inspected, a character area Rn is set for each of the characters. The height of each character area is unified to the maximum value Ysize of the character height. For each of the combinations H0y, H1y, and so forth, of corresponding horizontal lines between character areas Rn, the accumulated value P(y) of the black pixels on the lines is determined. Further, a local maximum value is extracted from the accumulated value, and the accumulated value P(y) is added for each predetermined width along Y-axis. The minimum value of the sum is extracted. Each extracted value and the height Ysize of the character area Rn is compared with a predetermined threshold value thereby to determine whether a dot jam or a dot drop has occurred.

Abstract: This invention provides a device and method to detect a degree of misregistration and angle of misrotation of an object image, a device to measure an object using such a degree of misregistration and an angle of misrotation and a device to record data representing a model. A model of the object used is imaged and at least two regions are established in the image data of the model. Delimiting values which are extracted from geometric features of these regions are stored as reference values. The same regions are then extracted from an image of the object, and similar delimiting values are obtained from their geometric features. The conditions so obtained are compared with the stored standard reference values. The degree of misregistration of the object to be processed with respect to the object used as the standard of comparison is calculated from the difference between these two values.