International Journal of Digital Library Systems, 2(3), 1-13, July-September 2011 1 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Keywords: Baseline Detection, Handwritten Document Processing, Isothetic Cover, Isothetic Polygon, Word Segmentation IntroductIon A handwriting portrays the characteristics of an individual, and hence has been studied in Efficient Word Segmentation and Baseline Localization in Handwritten documents using Isothetic covers Mousumi Dutt, Bengal Engineering and Science University, India Aisharjya Sarkar, Bengal Engineering and Science University, India Arindam Biswas, Bengal Engineering and Science University, India Partha Bhowmick, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India Bhargab B. Bhattacharya, Indian Statistical Institute, India ABStrAct Analysis of handwritten documents is a challenging task in the modern era of document digitization. It requires efficient preprocessing which includes word segmentation and baseline detection. This paper proposes a novel approach toward word segmentation and baseline detection in a handwritten document. It is based on certain structural properties of isothetic covers tightly enclosing the words in a handwritten document. For an ap- propriate grid size, the isothetic covers successfully segregate the words so that each cover corresponds to a particular word. The grid size is selected by an adaptive technique that classifies the inter-cover distances into two classes in an unsupervised manner. Finally, by using a geometric heuristic with the horizontal chords of these covers, the corresponding baselines are extracted. Owing to its traversal strategy along the word boundaries in a combinatorial manner and usage of limited operations strictly in the integer domain, the method is found to be quite fast, efficient, and robust, as demonstrated by experimental results with datasets of both Bengali and English handwritings. numerous disciplines including experimental psychology, neuroscience, engineering, an- thropology, forensic science, etc. (Plamondon, 1993; Plamondon & Leedham, 1990; Simner et al., 1994, 1996; Galen & Morasso, 1998; Galen & Stelmach, 1993; Wan et al., 1991). DOI: 10.4018/jdls.2011070101