1. A hand-written character recognition apparatus comprising: input means for generating hand-written stroke data; means for deriving and storing characteristics of the hand-written stroke data; buffer means for storing rectangular outline and direction data of the hand-written stroke data; character dictionary means for storing characteristics of strokes of characters and directional relations of rectangular outline data of characters, including rectangular outline and direction data for partial structures of characters; and character recognition means, including partial structure determining means which determines partial structures of the hand-written stroke data, for determining characters of the hand-written stroke data by comparing characteristics and the directional relations of the rectangular outline data stored in the character dictionary means with respect to the direction data of partial-structures of the hand-written strokes stored in the buffer means.