The invention discloses an electronic character input method and a system. The method comprises imaging the text message with an optical imaging device, converting the pointed text information in the text image into character text through an optical character recognition module; and inputting the recognized character text into a current text in process. In addition, modification can be made by, inputting the modified character text into the current text in process. A user can utilize a built-in camera to take a text image for characters to be input, obtain a character text corresponding to the text image through recognition and conversion, input the character text into the text which is currently processed by the intelligent device without inputting the characters in the text image one by one on a keyboard or a touch screen, thereby saving labor and time.