Systems and methods for processing images to recognize characters. Such may include locating background in an image which separate lines of characters, and then locating background which separate characters. The inter-character spaces within a line may be used to determine a probable inter-character spacing for the characters. Within each detected line, the character having an inter-character spacing most similar to the probable inter-character spacing may be set as a starting character for classification. Using the probable inter-character spacing and the location of the starting character, the location of a character adjacent to the starting character in a first direction may be determined and the character classified. Such process may repeat in the first direction until a first end of the line is reached. The process may then move to a character adjacent the starting character in a second direction and repeat until a second end of the line is reached.