9. A computer-implemented method of retrievably storing contents of a plurality of documents having images imprinted thereon comprising optically scanning the documents to form a digital representation of the images on the documents, automatically assigning an identification to each image representation of each document, automatically machine-selecting search words from each document to be used in locating the document from mass storage, converting the selected search words to code, correlating the converted search words with the identification of the document in image from which the search words were selected, storing the converted search words and identification in code in a non-volatile memory, storing in mass storage the image representation of each document, establishing from images of the scanned documents a font table of alphanumeric characters in a plurality of different fonts each character in each font correlated with an equivalent character in code, searching for a document by the steps of selecting a search word, entering into volatile memory the selected search word in code, constructing an image of the selected search word from the font table in a plurality of fonts, comparing the constructed search word with the image representations of scanned documents until a match in a stored document image is found, and displaying an image thereofof the matched document.
9. A computer-implemented method of retrievably storing contents of a plurality of documents having images imprinted thereon comprising optically scanning the documents to form a digital representation of the images on the documents, automatically assigning an identification to each image representation of each document, automatically machine-selecting search words from each document to be used in locating the document from mass storage, converting the selected search words to code, correlating the converted search words with the identification of the document in image from which the search words were selected, storing the converted search words and identification in code in a non-volatile memory, storing in mass storage the image representation of each document, establishing from images of the scanned documents a font table of alphanumeric characters in a plurality of different fonts each character in each font correlated with an equivalent character in code, searching for a document by the steps of selecting a search word, entering into volatile memory the selected search word in code, constructing an image of the selected search word from the font table in a plurality of fonts, comparing the constructed search word with the image representations of scanned documents until a match in a stored document image is found, and displaying an image thereofof the matched document. 10. A method according to claim 9 and further comprising comparing characters of an incoming document with the font table and, if a matching font is not found, adding images of the characters of the incoming document to the font table.