Patent ID: 8538154

Claim:
An image processing method performed by an image processing apparatus for extracting a heading region from an image of a document, comprising: storing said image by said image processing apparatus; and analyzing said image by said image processing apparatus, said analyzing said image comprising: detecting candidates for said heading region, from a plurality of character string element regions in said image; defining a range including a plurality of said character string element regions as a range to be processed; grouping into groups said candidates within said range to be processed, based on position of the candidates and size of a row within the candidates; quantitatively determining, for each of said groups included in said range to be processed, an extent to which each of said groups corresponds to said heading region, based on position of the candidates within each of said groups and size of a row within the candidates within each of said groups; selecting, from said groups included in said range to be processed, a group that corresponds most to said heading based on said extent, as a representative group; determining that said candidate belonging to said representative group is said heading region; dividing said range to be processed, at a position of said heading region; and newly defining each of portions generated by dividing said range to be processed, as said range to be processed.