2. The method of claim 1 wherein text lines are identified by a selective Hough transform wherein a two-dimensional array records the number of points that lie close to a line of specified orientation and position whereby highest valued entries in said table correspond to candidate lines of text, and wherein regions whose centroids contribute to said peak table entries are stored.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein text lines are identified by a selective Hough transform wherein a two-dimensional array records the number of points that lie close to a line of specified orientation and position whereby highest valued entries in said table correspond to candidate lines of text, and wherein regions whose centroids contribute to said peak table entries are stored. 3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of estimating an intra-word separation from said handwritten text using the projecting of boundaries of the word segment regions lying on said lines of text.