Patent ID: 8209600

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: generating a text document from a source document, such that the generated text document preserves the source document's spatial layout of text represented within the source document, wherein said generating comprises: obtaining from the source document a plurality of text elements, spatial coordinates for the text elements, and font information for the text elements, wherein the source document is formatted according to a document format that specifies locations of the text elements within the source document in (X, Y) space; determining a base character width W b and base character height H b for positioning text characters within the generated text document, wherein the base character width W b and the base character height H b are derived from the font information for the text elements; for each text element of at least a subset of the plurality of text elements: calculating a space value S and line value L for the generated text document from a spatial coordinate (X, Y) corresponding to the location of the current text element within the source document, wherein S=X/W b and L=Y/H b ; and writing the current text element to the generated text document at (S, L); and storing the generated text document to a storage device.