1. A method for managing a hardcopy document (HD), comprising: obtaining an image of the HD comprising a first plurality of linking labels corresponding to a first plurality of regions enclosed by a plurality of outlines, wherein the first plurality of linking labels and the plurality of outlines are added to the image by a user or drawn on the HD by the user before the image is generated; identifying, within the image, a first region and a first linking label specifying an instance of a first layout object and an ordering of the first region in the instance of the first layout object; identifying, within the image, a second region and a second linking label specifying the instance of the first layout object and an ordering of the second region in the instance of the first layout object, wherein the first plurality of linking labels comprises the first linking label and the second linking label, and wherein the first plurality of regions comprises the first region and the second region; extracting a first plurality of strings from the first plurality of regions; generating a first combined string by combining the first plurality of strings based on the ordering of the first region specified in the first linking label and the ordering of the second region specified in the second linking label; and generating an editable electronic version of the HD specifying the first combined string, wherein the first linking label and the second linking label are not visible in a rendered version of the editable electronic version of the HD.