1 ) A method of identifying a string formed from a number of hand-written characters, the method including: a) Determining character probabilities for each character in the string, each character probability representing the likelihood of the respective character being a respective one of a number of predetermined characters; b) Determining template probabilities for the string, each template probability representing the likelihood of the string corresponding to a respective one of a number of templates, each template representing a respective combination of character types; c) Determining string probabilities in accordance with the determined character and template probabilities; and, d) Identifying the character string in accordance with the determined string probabilities.