12. The method of claim 11, further comprising aligning the vertical and horizontal runs of the extracted symbol with the vertical and horizontal runs of the exemplar being compared.
12. The method of claim 11, further comprising aligning the vertical and horizontal runs of the extracted symbol with the vertical and horizontal runs of the exemplar being compared. 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: changing the coordinates of the vertical and horizontal runs of the extracted symbol to minimize an effect of dimensional changes caused by noise; determining if an alignment row is needed by comparing one of 1) a distance from a horizontal axis to a bottom row of the extracted symbol to a distance from the horizontal axis to the bottom row of the exemplar being compared, and 2) a distance from the horizontal axis to a top row of the extracted symbol to a distance from the horizontal axis to the top row of the exemplar being compared; and determining if an alignment column is needed by comparing one of 1) a distance from a vertical axis to a left-most column of the extracted symbol to a distance from the vertical axis to the left-most column of the exemplar being compared, and 2) a distance from the vertical axis to a right-most column of the extracted symbol to a distance from the vertical axis to the right-most column of the exemplar being compared.