This paper presents a comparison of five text character representation methods for the design of a non-conventional typed text reading system. Each of these five methods differently represents an extracted text character with advantages or disadvantages in memory representation space, matching efficiency and flexibility/accuracy for the recognition of characters with missing information or unwanted noise, shifting and/or rotation. The five character representation methods (or coding schemes) are: (i) Full Bit Array (FBA); (ii) Useful Character Part with Coordinates (UCPC); (iii) Freeman Character Coding (FCC); (iv) Horizontal-Vertical Projections (HVP); and (v) Useful Character Part with Projections (UCPP). All the representation methods are based on an array of 12 × 9 cells with a 10 × 7 useful character coding area.