1. A method for determining the orientation of Chinese words, the method comprising the steps of: (a) scanning, using a scanner, a paper document containing a Chinese word to generate a word image, the word image having a plurality of pixels, including a plurality of dark pixels forming the Chinese word and a plurality of bright pixels; (b) generating, by a processor, a plurality of horizontal coordinates corresponding to a plurality of vertical lines of the word image; (c) counting, by the processor, a plurality of vertical projections, each of which is the number of dark pixels on the vertical line associated with each of the horizontal coordinates; (d) selecting, by the processor, a first coordinate and a second coordinate, corresponding to the largest and second largest vertical projections, respectively; (e) selecting, by the processor, a third coordinate between the first coordinate and the second coordinate; and (f) determining, by the processor, the orientation of the Chinese word as right-side up if the third coordinate is located to the left of a center of the word image and as upside down if the third coordinate is located to the right of the center of the word image.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein step (d) includes the steps of: computing an average and a standard deviation by computing the average and the standard deviation of those vertical projections being greater than 0, respectively; computing a first threshold being the sum of the average and a first threshold coefficient multiplying the standard deviation; selecting a plurality of peak coordinates, the vertical projections of which are greater than the first threshold; and selecting the first coordinate and the second coordinate from the peak coordinates.