Abstract: A method of generating a searchable representation of an electronic document includes obtaining an electronic document specifying a graphical layout of content items. The content items include at least text in a table. The method also includes selecting masking rules, generating a vertical mask based on the masking rules, and generating a horizontal mask based on the masking rules. The vertical mask indicates estimated locations of vertical boundaries of table columns of the table, and the horizontal mask indicates estimated locations of horizontal boundaries of table rows of the table. The method also includes identifying cells of the table based on the vertical mask and the horizontal mask and generating a searchable data structure based on text corresponding to the identified cells of the table.