A method for automatically detecting table data in a document that is
described by a page definition language and converting the table data into
a markup language representation. The document may have one or more pages.
The page definition language description of the document provides a list
of words, the position of the each on a page with respect to a
predetermined reference point, and the size of each word. The present
invention automatically identifies table data in the document by utilizing
one or more table-identifying features. A first table-identifying feature
may be the number of word clusters on a line. A second table-identifying
feature may be the vertical alignment of word clusters between lines. A
third table-identifying feature may be the changes in text density or
space density between lines.
