METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING BITMAP IMAGE DOCUMENTS TO EDITABLE CODED DATA USING A STANDARD NOTATION TO RECORD DOCUMENT RECOGNITION AMBIGUITIES

Documents represented as bitmap images are transformed into coded textual data and coded graphics data by graphics and textual recognizers, which use a standard notation for recording the results of the document recognition processes, including any ambiguities, in a document description language. Recognized portions of the document, represented as editable coded data, such as for example ASCII, are placed in elements, defined in the document description language, with all contents of an element sharing some common characteristic. Elements can include, for example: character-string-elements, questionable-character-elements, questionable-word-elements, verified-word-elements, alternate-word-elements, segment-elements, and arc-elements.