fig1 shows a process 100 suitable for implementation in a computer program application for processing a formatted computer - readable source document to create a style sheet . the style sheet can be a stand - alone document , or it can be one of multiple components in an electronic document . the source document received by the application ( step 102 ) has one or more pages of text . each word on a page of a formatted document is characterized by a position of the word on the page and a word appearance defined by the font properties of its characters . the application partitions the formatted text into groups of words ( step 104 ). the application can be configured to partition the text into groups of words according to : ( i ) the positions of the words ; ( ii ) the font properties of the words ; or ( iii ) both . each group of words in the partitioned text is assigned at least one element from a predefined set of markup language elements ( step 106 ). the application can be configured to assign each group of words at least one element based on : ( i ) the position of the group of words on the page ; ( ii ) the font properties of the words in the group of words ; or ( iii ) both . the predefined set of markup language elements can include an address element , a blockquote element , a header element , a paragraph element , a list element , a table element and a caption element . in one implementation , the markup language elements are hypertext markup language ( html ) elements as defined in html 4 . 0 . in an alternative implementation , the markup language elements are extensible markup language ( xml ) elements as defined in xml 1 . 0 . fig2 shows a page of text 200 . line numbers have been added to the side of fig2 for illustrative purposes . with the application configured to partition the text according to the words &# 39 ; positions , adjacent words ( e . g ., words 202 , 204 , 206 and 208 on line 1 ) are grouped together to form a word group 230 . adjacent lines of words ( e . g ., lines 3 - 4 ) having similar positions relative to the page are also grouped together to form a word group 232 . once the text has been completely partitioned into groups of words ( step 104 ), an element is assigned to each group of words ( step 106 ). for example , the application may assign word group 230 and word group 234 a header element h 1 and word group 236 a header element h 2 , where h 1 and h 2 are html 4 . 0 elements , based on the similar distance 210 of word group 230 and word group 234 from an edge of the page compared to the distance 212 of word group 236 from the same edge . in this example , the difference in the font properties of the words in word group 230 and word group 234 is ignored when assigning the header element h 1 solely on the basis of the position of each group of words on the page . alternatively , if the text is partitioned according to the font properties of the words in the text , the application assigns , for example , a header element h 1 to word group 230 and word group 236 , and a header element h 2 to word group 234 , based on the similar set of font properties shared by the words in word group 230 and word group 236 compared to the different set of font properties of the words in word group 234 . the difference in the relative position of word group 230 and word group 236 is ignored when assigning the header element h 1 solely on the basis of font properties . as a final example , if the text is partitioned according to both the positions and the font properties of the words in the text , word group 230 may be assigned , for example , a header element h 1 , while word group 232 is assigned a paragraph element p , word group 234 is assigned a header element h 2 , word group 236 is assigned a header element h 3 , word group 238 is assigned a list element li and word group 240 is assigned an address element address , all of which elements are of html 4 . 0 . in this example , the groups of words are assigned different elements because none of the groups share both similar relative positions on the page and similar font properties in the text . returning to fig1 , the application derives an element style for each of the assigned predefined elements ( step 108 ). the element style includes a character style , a layout style or a combination of both . each character style includes at least one font property and its associated value , and is derived from the font properties of the words in the group of words to which the element is assigned . an example of a character style is a typeface of the words in the group of words . in one implementation , the font property is selected from a predefined set of font properties including a font family , a font style , a font weight , a font variant and a font size . similarly , each layout style includes at least one text property and its associated value , and is derived from the text properties of the group of words to which the element is assigned . in one implementation , the text property is selected from a predefined set of text properties defined in css1 , including a text decoration , a text alignment , a text indentation and a text transformation . for example , returning to fig2 , the group appearance of word group 232 shows that the first character of each word in word group 232 is uppercased . in this implementation , the application may define the layout style of word group 232 in part by a text property of “ text transform : capitalize ”. the application may also define the layout style of word group 236 in part by a text property of “ text decoration : underline ” since the group appearance of word group 236 shows that the words are underlined . to derive an element style for an element assigned to more than one group of words , the application compares the character style and the layout style of the groups of words to which the element is assigned . if the difference in the character style and the layout style of the groups of words exceeds a threshold , one or more alternate elements may be created . the threshold is a numeric value x specified by a user of the application , or it can be a preprogrammed numeric value x stored in the application . the application may be configured to create an alternate element if at least ( 100 − x ) % of the words in the groups of words to which the element is assigned have a different set of font properties or text properties or both . for example , a comparison of the character style and the layout style of word groups 230 and 234 shows that both word groups 230 and 234 share the same layout style and a similar character style . the difference between the character style of the two groups is in the value of the “ font style ” property , with word group 234 being defined in part by a font property of “ font style : italic ”, whereas word group 230 is defined in part by a font property of “ font style : regular ”. the application may be configured to ignore the difference and assign a header element h 1 to both word groups 230 and 234 , where the element style of the header element h 1 is derived in part from the most common character style of the words in the two groups . alternatively , the application may be configured to create an alternate header element alt_h 1 , and assign either element h 1 or element alt_h 1 to word groups 230 and 234 . in this configuration , the style of element h 1 is derived in part from the most common character style of the words in the two groups and the style of element alt_h 1 is derived in part from , for example , the next most common character style of the words in the two groups . an alternate of an element may only be created after the element has been assigned to at least one group of words . once an element style is derived for each of the assigned elements , the application creates a style sheet ( step 110 ). the style sheet defines the derived element style for each of the elements assigned to the groups of words of the source document . in addition , the style sheet may include detected page margin information for a page of the source document . in one implementation , the style sheet is a cascading style sheet ( css ). in another implementation , the style sheet is an extensible style sheet ( xsl ). the style sheet may be used with any source document represented in a suitable markup language document , such as html or xml to give the source document a particular appearance when formatted for display or printing . the style sheet may also be used with multiple markup language documents to give the documents a common appearance when formatted , by a web browser , for example . optionally , in addition to generating a style sheet , the application may be configured to create a markup language version of the source document by marking up the text of the source document with the elements in the generated style sheet . a user can use a style sheet generated by the application as an authoring tool for “ marking - up ” documents to create markup language versions of multiple source documents sharing a similar appearance with the source document when formatted for display or printing . the user provides the other source documents with an appearance similar to that of the mark - language version of an original source document by assigning elements having element styles defined in the style sheet generated from the original source document . the invention can be implemented in digital electronic circuitry , or in computer hardware , firmware , software , or in combinations of them . apparatus of the invention can be implemented in a computer program product tangibly embodied in a machine - readable storage device for execution by a programmable processor ; and method steps of the invention can be performed by a programmable processor executing a program of instructions to perform functions of the invention by operating on input data and generating output . the invention can be implemented advantageously in one or more computer programs that are executable on a programmable system including at least one programmable processor coupled to receive data and instructions from , and to transmit data and instructions to , a data storage system , at least one input device , and at least one output device . each computer program can be implemented in a high - level procedural or object - oriented programming language , or in assembly or machine language if desired ; and in any case , the language can be a compiled or interpreted language . suitable processors include , by way of example , both general and special purpose microprocessors . generally , a processor will receive instructions and data from a read - only memory and / or a random access memory . generally , a computer will include one or more mass storage devices for storing data files ; such devices include magnetic disks , such as internal hard disks and removable disks ; magneto - optical disks ; and optical disks . storage devices suitable for tangibly embodying computer program instructions and data include all forms of non - volatile memory , including by way of example semiconductor memory devices , such as eprom , eeprom , and flash memory devices ; magnetic disks such as internal hard disks and removable disks ; magneto - optical disks ; and cd - rom disks . any of the foregoing can be supplemented by , or incorporated in , asics ( application - specific integrated circuits ). the invention has been described in terms of particular embodiments . other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims . for example , the steps of the invention can be performed in a different order and still achieve desirable results . the invention has been described in terms of a document or an electronic document . it should be understood that these do not necessarily correspond to a file in a computer or network file system . a document may be stored in a portion of a file that holds other documents , in a single file dedicated to the document in question , or in a set of coordinated files . the invention can be used to generate a css1 style sheet from a source document generated by an optical character recognition ( ocr ) description of a scanned document . the application can be configured to process the source document to create an html document by translating the optical character recognition ( ocr ) description of the scanned document into an html description of the scanned document . the generated css 1 style sheet may be used with the html document to give the source document a particular appearance when formatted by a css1 - extended html web browser .