Abstract: A system and method of the extraction of textual data from a digital image using a data pattern comprised of visible and invisible characters to locate the data to be extracted and upon find such data populating the fields of an associated data base with the extracted visible data. The digital image to be processed is first compared against master document images contained in a database. Upon determining the proper master document image, a template having predefined data zone is applied to the image to create zone images. The zone images are optically read and converted into a character file which is then parsed with the pattern to locate the text to be extracted. Upon finding data matching the pattern, that data is extracted and the visible portions used to populate data fields in a database record associated with the digital image. In an alternate embodiment, if the extracted data cannot be successfully matched, a validation file of the unmatched data is created for review by an operator.