1. In a character recognition system, a method for segmenting portions of a medium representation into text and non-text types, said method comprising the steps of: a) accessing said medium representation, said medium representation comprising a plurality of scanlines; b) extracting a set of run lengths from said plurality of scanlines; c) generating a set of run length classifications by generating a run length classification for each run length of said set of run lengths, said run length classification determined according to a length of each run length; d) constructing a plurality of rectangles using said set of run length classifications, each of said plurality of rectangles representing a portion of said medium representation; e) classifying each of said plurality of rectangles as either a non-text type or an unknown type; and f) merging a plurality of rectangles of said unknown type into a plurality of text blocks.