Patent ID: 7467134

Claim:
A computer implemented method for extracting content data from a visual form of data comprising: receiving data representing the visual form of data, the data received comprising content data and format data indicating a manner in which the content data is to be visually represented, wherein said format data is applied to said content data to produce said visual form of data; receiving a template including at least one extraction instruction for extracting content data included in said visual form of data; performing normalization processing; analyzing said visual form of data using said template and identifying a first portion of the content data included in said visual form of data in accordance with said at least one extraction instruction, said visual form of data being characterized by a plurality of dimensions represented using a coordinate system, said extraction instruction identifying a region of said visual form of data using said coordinate system, said first portion of the content data being at least partially included in said region; searching for said first portion of the content data in said region by comparing coordinates of a first rectangular region of said first portion and coordinates of said region, and selecting text in accordance with said comparing and in accordance with a degree of expected error due to said normalization processing; and storing said first portion as a tag value associated with the received data, wherein said first portion is text, and wherein said extraction instruction extracts text represented in the visual form of data, wherein said visual form of data is analyzed using said template so that even if no text is found in connection with said searching, additional extraction instructions in said template are executed, and wherein the extracted text is modifiable by a user, and wherein said visual form of data has a first coordinate system prior to said normalization processing and said coordinate system is a second coordinate system associated with a display area, said normalization processing including: translating first coordinates of said first coordinate system associated with each text string included in said visual form of data to second coordinates of said second coordinate system; scaling a size of each text string in said visual form of data to correspond to a size of a display device associated with said display area; and joining and splitting text strings so that each text string includes a logical unit of text.