File structure for scanned documents

摘要

The present invention provides an electronic file and file structure solution for comprehensive management of documents captured as scanned objects, raster objects or representation. Using the present invention a representation of a document is created using any type of imaging device. The representation includes objects present in the document. The location in the document of the objects in the plurality of objects is identified. One copy of each different object in the plurality of objects is stored in the file. The location of objects in the plurality of objects are stored in the file in a spatial layout index. The file thus contains all of the information required to faithfully reproduce the original document. In order to reconstruct the document, the objects are placed at the locations identified by the spatial layout index.