8.5

distance). To find out if one text passage belongs to the one found before it, first the vertical distance,
second the horizontal distance and finally, the font size difference are checked. Only if all three values
lie within the tolerance are the two blocks recognized as belonging together. Additionally, you can
control text passages whose horizontal distance has been recognized as out of the tolerance, but
whose type size difference and vertical distance lie within the tolerance, outputting it in one line. At the
output, these text passages are separated by a tabulator (ASCII code 9).
l
Font size difference: Indicates the smallest acceptable factor between maximum and minimum
font size within one line. A value of 0.60 means that with a ratio from maximum to minimum font
size (in points), that is less than 0.60, two text passages are not recognized as belonging
together. For example, if two text passages are formatted with different font sizes. Passage 1 with
10, passage 2 with 18 point. The ratio 0.56 is smaller than the adjusted value 0.60. Therefore
those two text passages are recognized as not belonging together.
l
Word distance: Indicates the largest acceptable distance between two text passages, so that
they are still recognized as belonging together. This the factor the font's mean character width is
multiplied with. The value for the mean character width is taken from the corresponding font's
attributes (for texts which are printed justified, it is suggested to raise this value up to about 2).
For example, if the mean character width of the font example shown here corresponds to the
width of the blank character (for other fonts it may be another sign). There is another text passage
found whose horizontal distance is even bigger than the first one's mean character width,
multiplied by factor 1.0. The two text passages are found to not belong together.