Patent ID: 8825592

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of converting a plurality of electronic documents into a plurality of digital documents for extracting data, the method comprising: accessing the plurality of electronic documents from a memory module, wherein the plurality of electronic documents are from a plurality of sources and non-uniform in content, organization and format; extracting data from each electronic document corresponding to a plurality of keys contained within a mapping structure stored in the memory module; organizing the extracted data into values, wherein each value maps to one of the plurality of keys to form a hash map for each file; and storing the hash map for each file in a database that can be interpreted, manipulated and searched by a computer; wherein extracting data comprises: determining a coordinate system for at least one document, identifying a plurality of line elements within the coordinate system, each line element corresponding to at least one key in the mapping structure, determining whether two or more line elements are connected, using connected line elements to determine one or more regions within the at least one document, identifying a plurality of literals in at least one region, distributing the plurality of literals into one or more columns, retrieving a header from one or more of the columns, comparing the retrieved header to at least one key in the mapping structure, and if the retrieved header matches at least one key, collecting the literals in the column having the retrieved header.