READING ORDER DETERMINATION APPARATUS, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR DETERMINING READING ORDER OF CHARACTERS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a technique for determining a reading order of characters by applicable computer processing for correction of a character region caused by adding another character region which has not been recognized.SOLUTION: The method includes preparing a list of character information, where character information extracted from image data by character recognition processing is aligned in the reading order of characters, and preparing a list of line information, where line information made up of a line box surrounding a set of characters which are continuously aligned in the same direction in the image data and the alignment direction of characters in the line box is listed in the order of alignment of lines. In response to a request for adding character information to the list of character information, extracting a line box containing a character region of the character to be added from the list of line information, obtaining all character information having the character region contained in the line box from the list of character information and rearranging according to the position with respect to the alignment direction of characters corresponding to the line box to determine a new reading order of characters.