Drop it, leave it, read it

1. 01

   Drop it in.

   A paper, a filing, a catalogue, something photographed off a shelf at an odd angle. It lands in your library, and that is the last decision you have to make about it.

2. 02

   It goes to work without you.

   On our machines, not yours, so you can close the tab. It reads the pages, works out what is a heading and what is a footnote and what is a table, and puts the whole thing back in the order it was meant to be read.

   1. Reading the document
   2. Building the layout Detecting inline math · Refining tables · Recovering table math · Stitching across pages · Cropping figures
   3. Almost ready

3. 03

   It comes back set.

   Not a picture of a page, and not just the table out of it. The heading above it and the note underneath come back too — every mark on the sheet, as type you can select, in the order it was written, re-set for whatever you happen to be holding.

   Pension Statistics

   Number of pensioners on the rolls June 30, 1885

   Agency	Army		Navy		War of 1812
   	Invalids	Widows	Invalids	Widows	Survivors	Widows
   Columbus, O.	21,172	7,779	.....	.....	185	1,298
   Chicago, Ill.	22,857	6,079	354	216	118	698
   Indianapolis	20,627	5,061	.....	.....	77	669
   Boston, Mass.	14,631	7,323	732	548	271	1,433
   Syracuse, N.Y.	15,750	6,179	.....	.....	320	1,536
   Washington, D.C.	17,228	4,383	596	493	160	797
   Topeka, Kas.	18,002	3,427	.....	.....	105	617
   Philadelphia, Pa.	13,351	5,418	458	333	71	545

   Note.—In the number of pensioners on the roll under the heads of “Invalids” and “Widows,” etc., are included survivors and widows of the war of 1812, commencing with the year 1871.

4. 04

   Wherever you read it.

   Three states and only three: a narrow screen that scrolls, one column, and two columns that flow — so a figure never ends up stranded away from the text it belongs to.