1. A character recognition method executed by a computer, the character recognition method comprising: specifying a character recognition target item from image data of the form; calculating a position and size of an image character in the specified character recognition target item; calculating a score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing the image character on the basis of characteristics of handwritten and printed characters; discriminating on the basis of the score whether the image character is handwritten or printed; calculating an average value of scores of characters of the recognition target item, and checking whether or not the recognition target item includes both handwritten and printed characters; and performing character recognition on each character of the recognition target item with an appropriate character recognition engine for a result of discriminating whether said each character is handwritten or printed and a result of checking whether the recognition target item includes both handwritten and printed characters, wherein: the calculating of the score includes: calculating a first score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a gradation distribution of the image character; calculating a second score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a character color of the image character; calculating a third score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a gradation ratio between a turning point where a character stroke extracted from the image character changes and the character stroke other than the turning point; calculating a fourth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing contrast at an edge of the character stroke, the contrast indicating a degree of change in gray level at a boundary between the character stroke and background; calculating a fifth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing vertical sizes and center positions of the characters on the basis of a position and size of the image character; and calculating a sixth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing character sizes and pitch on the basis of the position and size of the image character; and in discriminating whether the image character is handwritten or printed, the first to sixth scores are aggregated by weighting the first to sixth scores according to respective importance.
1. A character recognition method executed by a computer, the character recognition method comprising: specifying a character recognition target item from image data of the form; calculating a position and size of an image character in the specified character recognition target item; calculating a score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing the image character on the basis of characteristics of handwritten and printed characters; discriminating on the basis of the score whether the image character is handwritten or printed; calculating an average value of scores of characters of the recognition target item, and checking whether or not the recognition target item includes both handwritten and printed characters; and performing character recognition on each character of the recognition target item with an appropriate character recognition engine for a result of discriminating whether said each character is handwritten or printed and a result of checking whether the recognition target item includes both handwritten and printed characters, wherein: the calculating of the score includes: calculating a first score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a gradation distribution of the image character; calculating a second score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a character color of the image character; calculating a third score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing a gradation ratio between a turning point where a character stroke extracted from the image character changes and the character stroke other than the turning point; calculating a fourth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing contrast at an edge of the character stroke, the contrast indicating a degree of change in gray level at a boundary between the character stroke and background; calculating a fifth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing vertical sizes and center positions of the characters on the basis of a position and size of the image character; and calculating a sixth score that quantifies a possibility of handwriting or printing by analyzing character sizes and pitch on the basis of the position and size of the image character; and in discriminating whether the image character is handwritten or printed, the first to sixth scores are aggregated by weighting the first to sixth scores according to respective importance. 2. The character recognition method according to claim 1 , wherein, in a case where one of the first to sixth scores, which are respectively obtained in analyzing the gradation distribution, analyzing the character color, analyzing the character stroke, analyzing the contrast at the edge of the character stroke, analyzing the vertical sizes and center positions of the characters, and analyzing the character sizes and pitch, exceeds a predetermined threshold set for determining with certainty that a character is a printed character, remaining analyses of the image character are skipped, and analyses of a next image character are started.