A program causes a computer to function as a document recognition apparatus, having an extraction unit for extracting connected components of pixels from an input image, a generation unit for generating a reference element that is connected components of pixels extracted by the extraction unit and combined elements obtained by combining the reference element and connected components of pixels adjacent to the reference element as an element to be estimated, a calculation unit for calculating a degree of certainty that indicates how much the element to be estimated generated by the generation unit seems to be a character, and a determination unit for identifying elements that seem to be characters among the elements to be estimated based on the degree of certainty calculated by the calculation unit.