PDF Text Extraction via Glyph Grouping and Bounding Box Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
The Portable Document Format (PDF) is not conducive to efficient editing due to its complex structure, leading to inefficient editing experiences and high memory and processing resource requirements when importing PDF data into editing applications, as each text character is treated as an individual glyph, losing contextual data like lines, line breaks, and paragraph breaks.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that accesses PDF data, sorts glyphs into sets, calculates expanded glyph bounding boxes, and processes these sets to determine text areas by identifying overlapping glyphs and associating them with separate text areas, allowing for more efficient editing by grouping glyphs into text elements rather than individual characters.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If PDF data is imported into an editor with individual glyph processing, then text character data can be accessed, but editing becomes complex and unwieldy with high memory and processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges individual glyph data into text area objects that represent complete text blocks. By combining multiple individual glyph processing operations into a single text area entity, the system reduces editing complexity and improves ease of operation while maintaining the ability to access and manipulate text character data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified copy of PDF data in text area format that preserves the essential text information while discarding the complex original PDF structure. This copied representation allows efficient editing operations without requiring the full PDF data structure, thereby reducing memory and processing requirements.
2Reliability
If PDF data is imported with complete glyph information, then text accuracy is maintained, but memory and processing resource requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential text information from PDF data into text area objects, separating the necessary text content from the unnecessary complex PDF structure. This extraction process maintains text data accuracy by preserving character information while significantly reducing memory requirements by eliminating redundant PDF formatting and structural data.
3Productivity
If individual glyphs are processed separately, then precise character control is achieved, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple individual glyph processing operations into unified text area processing. By merging separate glyph-level operations into text area-level operations, the system achieves precise character control while significantly improving processing efficiency and reducing the time required for editing operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein is a computer implemented method. The method includes accessing, by a computer system including a processing unit, portable document format (PDF) data defining a plurality of glyphs, sorting the plurality of glyphs into one or more glyph sets, and calculating an expanded glyph bounding box for each glyph. Each glyph set is processed to determine one or more text areas, each text area being associated with one or more glyphs from the glyph set which have collectively overlapping expanded bounding boxes.