1. A method for the spotting of keywords in a handwritten document, comprising the steps of : inputting an image of the handwritten document; performing word segmentation on the image to obtain segmented words; performing word matching, consisting in the sub-steps of : performing character segmentation on the segmented words; performing character recognition on the segmented characters; performing distance computations on the recognized characters using a Generalized Hidden Markov Model with ergodic topology to identify words based on character models; performing non-keyword rejection on the identified words using a classifier based on a combination of Gaussian Mixture Models, Hidden Markov Models and Support Vector Machines, the non-rejected identified words being identified as spotted keywords; outputting the spotted keywords.