File structure for scanned documents

A file structure produced according to a method for producing said file structure for representing a scanned image of at least a portion of a physical document, comprising:

• receiving a resolution dependent bitmap image of a physical document, said image being produced by an optical scanning device including a plurality of bitmapped features, said plurality of bitmapped features in said image having no initial plain text identities;
• locating said plurality of bitmapped features in said image and inputting said plurality of bitmapped features into a text recognition system which obtains output plain text values for a subset of the bitmapped features in said plurality of bitmapped features, where said output plain text values may be single character codes or strings of character codes;
• classifying as non-textual those bitmapped features in the plurality of bitmapped features that are not members of said subset for which plain text values were obtained, and as textual those bitmapped features which are members of said subset for which plain text values were obtained from said recognition system;
• using said classifications to group textual bitmapped features into textual records, one textual record per textual bitmapped feature, and each textual record listing at least the following items:
• the output plain text value as provided by said textual recognition system, the spatial location of the bitmapped feature in said image, and a bitmap of the bitmapped feature;
• thereby making the image searchable by enabling the comparison of plain text, as provided by a query search engine, to be compared with plain text values in said textual records, thereby locating any textual bitmaps in the image that match the query plain text;
• grouping non-textual bitmapped features into non-textual records, each non-textual record listing at least the following items:
• the spatial location in the bitmapped feature in said image, and a bitmap of the bitmapped feature;
• generating a file comprising said textual and non-textual records so as to represent the image and a plain text interpretation of any textual bitmaps therein.