Combining Online and Offline Handwriting Recognition

This work describes an online handwriting recognition system working in combination with an offline recognizer. The online input data is first transcribed by theonline recognizer, then converted into an offline bitmapand recognized by the offline system. The outputs ofthe two recognizers are then combined probabilisticallyresulting in a classifier out-performing both individualsystems. Experiments were performed over a databaseof single digits. The error rate of the online recognizeris reduced by 43% when the combination with the offlinesystem is applied.