Abstract:  In this paper, we propose an approach for understanding Mathematical Expressions (MEs) in a printed document. The system is divided into three main components: (i) detection of MEs in a document; (ii) recognition of the symbols present in each ME; and (iii) arrangement of the recognised symbols. The MEs printed in separate lines are detected without any character recognition whereas the embedded expressions (mixed with normal text) are detected by recognising the mathematical symbols in text. Some structural features of the MEs are used for both cases. The mathematical symbols are grouped into two classes for convenience. At first, the frequently occurring symbols are recognised by a stroke-feature analysis technique. Recognition of less frequent symbols involves a hybrid of feature-based and template-based technique. The bounding-box coordinates and the size information of the symbols help to determine the spatial relationships among the symbols. A set of predefined rules is used to form the meaningful symbol groups so that a logical arrangement of the mathematical expression can be obtained. Experiments conducted using this approach on a large number of documents show high accuracy.