Recently, there has been an increased interest in the research and development of techniques for components of complete document analysis systems. In recognition of this trend, a series of workshops on Document Analysis Systems commenced in 1994, under the leadership of Henry Baird. The first workshop, held in Kaiserslautern, Germany, in October, 1994, was chaired by Andreas Dengel and Larry Spitz. The second workshop on Document Analysis Systems was held in Malvern, PA, USA, in October, 1996, chaired by Jonathan J. Hull and Suzanne Liebowitz Taylor. The DAS workshop has been one of the most prestigious technical meetings, bringing together a large number of scientists and engineers from all over the world to express their innovative ideas and report on their latest achievements in the area of document analysis systems. The papers in this special book edition were rigorously selected from the Third IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS’98), held in Nagano, Japan, on 4 - 6 November 1998. It is worth mentioning that the papers were chosen for their original and substantial contributions to the workshop theme and this special book edition. From among the 53 papers that were presented by authors from 11 countries at the DAS’98 after critical reviews by at least three experts, we carefully selected 29 papers for this special book edition. Most of the contributions in this edition have been expanded or extensively revised to include helpful discussions, suggestions, or comments made during the workshop.
