1. An image processing device comprising: a character recognition unit that recognizes character codes from character images in image data; a conversion unit for converting character images to character code data according to character codes; and a judgment unit that obtains a degree of character continuity, which is a degree of continuity between a character image and neighboring character images thereof, for any character image for which a character code has been recognized by said character recognition unit, and that makes a judgment on whether said character image should be converted into character code data based on said degree of character continuity.