Patent ID: 6865290

Claim:
A method of recognizing a document image including a plurality of areas, comprising: a) inputting said document image as a digital image; b) specifying a background color of said document image; c) extracting a plurality of pixels located in areas other than a background area from said document image by use of said background color; d) creating a plurality of connected elements by combining said plurality of pixels; e) classifying said plurality of connected elements into a plurality of fixed types of areas by using at least features of shapes of said plurality of connected elements to obtain an area-separated document images; f) creating a binary image by binarizing said area-separated document image; g) classifying a plurality of areas included in said binary image into said plurality of fixed types of areas; h) comparing a result of the classifying (e) and a result of the classify (g); i) correcting said area-separated document image if said result of the classifying (e) is not equal to said result of the classifying (g); and j) recognizing a character in a text area of said area-separated document image.