1. In an apparatus for recognizing a character with a hand held scanner having an image sensor composed of a two-dimensional array of photoelectric elements, projection lamps, a focusing lens, and a binary conversion circuit for converting output analog signals of the photoelectric elements into digital signals to form a binary pattern of the character scanned, wherein the binary pattern of the character scanned is defined in a rectangular character area of rows and columns of cells in which digital bits representing the character scanned occur or do not occur, and said apparatus including character area determining means for determining the character area by identifying the rows and columns of cells having digital bits representing the character scanned, and character recognition means for abstracting the presence of absence of digital bits on each line of the identified rows or columns of the character area into a set of line features, identifying the set of abstracted line features of the scanned character within the character area, and producing a character recognition result therefrom, the improvement comprising: character margin detection means, receiving the outputs from said binary conversion circuit and said character area determining means, for detecting the presence or absence of digital bits occurring in at least one line proximate each of a left side margin and a right aide margin of the character area, and providing left and right side margin output signals indicative of the detected digital bits in each respective line of the left and right side margins; character frame recognizing means receiving the output signals from said character margin detection means for recognizing a left side frame structure, from the output signals for the detected line of the left side margin, and a right side frame structure, from the output signals for the detected line of the right side margin, based upon an order of occurrence of said left and right side margin output signals of said character margin detection means; and character discrimination synthesis means receiving a character recognition output from said character recognition means and a left and right side frame structure output from said character frame recognizing means for synthesizing the results of said character recognition means and of said character frame recognizing means so as to discriminate between similarly shaped characters on the basis of differences detected in their left and right side margins and to provide a final character identification based thereon.