Document analysis of PDF files: methods, results and implications

Lovegrove, William S.; Brailsford, David F.

Abstract

A strategy for document analysis is presented which uses Portable Document Format (PDF the underlying file structure for Adobe Acrobat software) as its starting point. This strategy examines the appearance and geometric position of text and image blocks distributed over an entire document. A blackboard system is used to tag the blocks as a first stage in deducing the fundamental relationships existing between them. PDF is shown to be a useful intermediate stage in the bottom-up analysis of document structure. Its information on line spacing and font usage gives important clues in bridging the semantic gap between the scanned bitmap page and its fully analysed, block-structured form. Analysis of PDF can yield not only accurate page decomposition but also sufficient document information for the later stages of structural analysis and document understanding.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 1995
• Deposit Date: Nov 14, 2005
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 9, 2007
• Journal: Electronic Publishing -- Origination, Dissemination and Design
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 3
• Keywords: Document analysis, Document understanding, Blackboard methods, Geometric structure, Logical structure, PDF, PostScript
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1024553
• Additional Information: Copyright transferred from John Wiley to Univ.of Nottingham in 1998.