20. A system for the symbolic-based recognition of a handwriting input to an input surface having an output provided as a stream of coordinate data points, comprising: a data base memory storing a compilation of text-pattern pairs, said pattern of each said pair having been derived as sample features of said handwriting and including an associated sample index derived as aspects of said handwriting sample features, said text of each said pair representing at least one predetermined character glyph; a processor, responsive to said output to extract pattern test features and a corresponding test index therefrom, responsive to access said memory stored compilation and identify a said sample index corresponding with said test index, responsive to carry out a comparison of said pattern test features with said pattern sample features associated with said identified sample index, responsive in the presence of a correspondence between said pattern test and sample features to derive output signals corresponding with said text associated with said pattern sample features, said pattern symbols and test features including: a first word feature provided as a value corresponding with the word bottom location relative to the word base line of a said output representing a word, said relative word bottom being determined to be K* ((y.sub.max +line-space)/(2*line-space)) where y.sub.max is the visually lowest part of such word measured from the baseline, line-space is a selected spacing between writing lines and K is a constant, a second feature word provided as a value corresponding with the relative height of a said output representing a word, and a third word feature provided as a value corresponding with the aspect ratio of a said output representing a word, said word aspect ratio generally being determined to be K (height/diagonal) where K is a constant, height is word height, and diagonal is the square root of the height squared plus the width squared; and display means responsive to said derived output signals for effecting the publication of a said predetermined character glyph sequence of said text associated with said pattern sample features.
21. The system of claim 20 in which said pattern and test features include stroke based features derived from each stroke defining sequence of said data points and comprising: a first stroke feature provided as a value corresponding with the average worm moment based moment of a stroke; a second stroke feature provided as a value corresponding with the aspect ratio of a stroke; and a third stroke feature provided as a value corresponding with the beginning and ending locations of a stroke relative to a dimension of a word within which such stroke is incorporated.