1. A method for extracting document elements from a document image, comprising the steps of: identifying at least one connected component in the document image; generating a minimum bounding box for each at least one connected component in the document image; identifying primitive background areas surrounding the at least one bounding box for the at least one connected component; selectively eliminating the primitive background areas such that each remaining primitive background area exceeds a minimum threshold; selectively combining the remaining primitive background areas in the document image which uniquely share a common edge to form major background regions; determining at least one set of major background regions based on intersection points between the major background regions; segmenting the document image into document elements based on the at least one set of determined major background regions; and extracting the document elements segmented by the at least one set of determined major background regions.