Patent US 5,369,716

A document reader having a scanner. The layout of the image data read by the scanner from a document is analyzed. In accordance with the analysis of the lay out, the image data is divided into blocks, and the sequence in which to read characters from these blocks is determined. A keyboard or a mouse is operated, whenever necessary, thereby deleting any block and changing the sequence of reading characters from the blocks. Characters are read from the document in the sequence changed.