Abstract: The invention concerns a method and an apparatus for processing alphanumeric and graphics information recorded in page form on a system to create a data base which can be searched and edited, wherein the following steps take place automatically:A) determination of digitized page images;B) a first phase of processing digitized page images providing: verification that these pages are sequential, determination of the characteristic elements on each page, determination of the angle of deviation, mask formation, window formatting, alignment correction, identification of characteristic elements, image segmentation; recording in separate files the digitized page images, the digital image entities and the digitized segmented images accessible for editing;C) a second processing phase consisting of optical character recognition of the components relative to the alphanumeric data from the segmented images and recording the data in a file to create a data base which can be searched.