What is layout analysis in documents?

Layout analysis is the process of automatically identifying and structuring various elements on a document page, such as text blocks, headers, tables, images, and columns. The goal is to understand the visual and logical structure of the document to accurately extract and interpret its content.

In OCR and Document AI systems, layout analysis helps break scanned pages into meaningful parts, which improves text recognition accuracy and subsequent processing, such as highlighting headers, lists, or tables.

Examples of layout analysis stages:

• Block detection (text blocks, images)
• Classification of blocks by type
• Determination of hierarchy and reading order

This is an important step for automating document processing, especially for complex multi-page documents with layout.