Patent ID: 7313754

Claim:
An expert system for more efficiently and accurately deducing document structure from document formatting, the expert system comprising: a conversion engine for converting an unstructured file to a structured file, the conversion engine configured to locate document formatting including frequency of usage, repetitions and locations of text, spacing of text and style of text in the unstructured file to initially deduce document structure from the document formatting; and a verification engine, responsive to the output of the conversion engine, for generating and displaying a visual representation file of the structured file annotated with visual depictions of the classified components of the structured file on a display device so that the annotations with the visual depictions of the classified components can be modified, classifications of the components can be added and classifications of the components can be suggested by an example, and the structured file reprocessed by the conversion engine which to further deduce the document structure, uses the initially deduced document structure, the annotations that are modified, the classifications that are added, the classifications that are suggested, a rule that is derived from the examples provided via the verification engine and all occurrences in the structured file that match the derived rule, the conversion engine and the verification engine operating iteratively until an operator indicates the structured file annotated with visual depictions is correct.