Forms Processing

The forms processing function in PixEdit enables you to capture information from scanned paper forms such as customer polls, for further processing in, for example, Microsoft Excel. You can extract information from existing files and/or from incoming files from a network scanner or directly during desktop scanning. Both single page and multi page forms are supported in color and black/white format. If your task is to process a huge amount of forms in a very short time, you can let several PixEdit licenses run on separate computers and process forms from the same “incoming” folder without access conflicts. You need to have PixEdit with OCR capabilities in order to process forms.

Before you start capturing data from forms, you must first define the position and type of information you would like to extract from your scanned files such as numbers, text, barcodes and checkboxes. You can define as many form templates as you like. Form templates can be edited later on.

To ensure the highest possible accuracy, you can define areas in your form that you know are common on each scanned sheet. PixEdit will adjust each sheet so that this information overlaps before information is extracted. The graphics in these areas do not have to be designed with form alignment in mind; you can use any graphics such as text, logos and so on as long as you know for sure that the graphics is present in the same spot at each page. To further increase accuracy, you can define drop-out colors. Drop-out colors in forms exist to increase the human readability of a form, but such graphics does not improve machine recognition. Removing unnecessary color graphics will both reduce the amount of storage space as well as improve recognition accuracy.

When designing a form template you can set up various control criteria for fields, such as the maximum number of digits in a number field, enabling PixEdit to give you a warning if a field is not according to your definition during or after processing.

Defining and creating forms

Before you define a form template you must first make the toolbar for forms processing visible. If you can’t find it, use View, Toolbars and check Forms Tools to make it visible.

Toolbar for Forms Processing

Click the button for New Form. In the displayed dialog, choose where you want to find the first form that will later act as your form template. Choose between any scanned file, the current open document or scan it from an attached scanner. PixEdit will automatically correct any existing skew in your new form and save it, so that you can continue to work with your form later. At this point it is important that you have the general tool style bar visible. Hit F10 to make the tool style bar visible if you can’t locate it on your screen.

How to define Form Fields

With your form template visible on the screen, first select the type of field from the drop down list, then click and drag out an area of interest using the mouse.  If you prefer to drag out the field(s) first, you can do this and choose the field types afterwards instead. Choose between text, numbers, barcodes, alignment graphics, date and checkbox. PixEdit will display hints that are related to your task in the tools style window as you continue to define fields.

In addition to defining the field data type such as a number, you can also configure various properties for a field by right clicking the field or by double clicking. For example, a useful property of a number field is the maximum or minimum number of digits.

PixEdit will automatically assign names to fields as you define them, but you may want to give them names that make more sense.       

Some field types. From left to right: Number field, Text field, Barcode field and checkboxes. The field type is indicated by a small symbol in the upper right corner of the field. You can define the type of field before, or after dragging out the field with the mouse.

Hint: Copying and pasting fields

Some forms may contain many equal fields. This is especially true for checkboxes, and you can save a lot of time if you first create one single field of this type and then hit Ctrl-C to copy the field to the clipboard. To insert additional checkboxes, hit Ctrl-V. The pasted checkbox field will be inserted at the cursor position.

Form alignment and Alignment Fields

When capturing data from fixed fields in a form, it is important that each form is aligned as accurately as possible. Even high quality scanners may sometimes feed a sheet so that form fields are not aligned correctly. The printed paper form itself may also be out of alignment. PixEdit can use alignment fields to correct for such errors, resulting in accurate alignment of each form sheet even if the form does not contain dedicated graphics for this purpose.

Strictly speaking, it not absolutely necessary to use alignment fields.  However, if you can find either dedicated alignment marks or any other graphics located in the very same position on each form sheet, it is highly recommended that you define alignment fields around this graphics.

If your forms do not contain alignment graphics, you can use any type of graphics as alignment marks as long as these are located in the same position on each form sheet. Fixed text, logos or other types of graphics is fine. Drag out an area around suitable graphics and select Alignment mark from the drop down list in the tool style window. You don’t need to be particular accurate when defining the surrounding frame. It is enough to roughly enclose the graphics used for alignment as shown in the figure below.

PixEdit accepts up to four alignment marks in a form, but it is usually enough to define only one single mark. However, if your form sheets are less than perfect, and you suspect that some of the sheets may have a missing corner just where you have defined an alignment mark, for example, it will be an advantage if you have created additional alignment marks. PixEdit will average and calculate the position for each sheet based on the content all defined alignment marks. In the form sheet example below there are four dedicated alignment marks, and all of them have been defined as alignment fields. Note that these fields have not been accurately defined on purpose, as PixEdit will perform a search anyway inside the defined alignment fields. With other words, since alignment marks can be inserted so quickly, you should always use them if suitable graphics exists.

Figure shows a single form page with dedicated alignment graphics. Such graphics may vary between form types; in this case they are solid and quadratic. If your form does not contain dedicated marks you can do equally well by choosing any fixed text on the form sheet.

Text fields

Drag out a rectangle surrounding the text to be extracted, and then choose Text as field type in the tools style window. You can add optional properties by double clicking the digitized area. The text must be printed; hand written text is not supported.

Number fields

Drag out a rectangle surrounding the digits to be extracted, and then choose Numbers as field type in the tools style window. You can add optional properties by double clicking the digitized area. The numbers must be printed; hand written text is not supported unless they are written accurately as shown below.

Above: Hand written numbers must be carefully written to be recognized correctly.

Barcodes

Drag out a rectangle enclosing the barcode and then choose Barcode as field type in the tool style bar. You can add optional properties by double clicking the digitized area. Scanned forms must have sufficient resolution for accurate recognition of dense bar codes, 300 DPI is usually adequate. Barcodes must be of type 39, or other types supported by PixEdit. Double click the digitized area to check available barcode types.

Checkboxes

Drag out a rectangle enclosing the checkbox and then choose Checkbox as field type in the tool style bar. Double click the digitized area to configure properties for the checkbox.

Date

Drag out a rectangle enclosing the date area in the form, and then choose your preferred Date format as field type in the tool style bar. Double click the digitized area to configure properties for the Date field.

This field requires a value

Check this option if you would like an error message from PixEdit if the active selected field does not contain valid data during forms processing.

Use this as title item

Check this option for any text or number filed. The content of the field will be used for naming the saved raster file after data extraction. Note that this option will override other save settings in the batch Wizard or in the After Scanning setup.

Process order

When processing forms, PixEdit will output the content of each field in the same order as you defined them. To configure a specific order in the output file, check this option and then click each field in the same order as you would like them to be written in the output file.

Testing your form

Before starting a form processing batch, it is advisable to first check if everything is working as expected. Click the Test Form button to verify that all fields are processed correctly. If you are not pleased with the displayed results, you may continue to adjust field sizes, positions and properties.

Processing forms

PixEdit offers two alternative methods for processing forms. You can use the Batch Wizard and select a folder structure for processing or let the Batch Wizard wait for files to appear in a defined folder, or you can let PixEdit automatically process forms as they arrive from a scanner. Both methods are explained below.

Processing forms using Batch Wizard

Use Tools, Batch Wizard or click the Batch Wizard icon. The first thing you must decide is if PixEdit shall wait for files in a specific folder to be processed, or if PixEdit shall process a folder structure. Click Next, then choose Forms processing.

In the Forms processing section, choose form template name, output format for extracted fields and when you want to handle processing errors. If you have defined a Title item in your forms, extracted data from this field will be used as file names. In this case other raster saving options will be ignored. Click Next to terminate forms processing configuration and to start processing.

Processing forms automatically after scanning

To process forms automatically after scanning, check Enable in ScanBar, then click the After scanning button in ScanBar. In the After scanning dialog, click the Forms tab. Choose form template name, output format for extracted fields and when you want to handle processing errors. If you have defined a Title item in your forms, extracted data from this field will be used as file names. In this case other raster saving options will be ignored.