Why use barcodes in document scanning?
There are many benefits to using barcodes while scanning your documents.
Traditional scanning methods require you to scan your documents in pre-separated batches and then manually name and organize the resulting files. Barcode scanning, on the other hand, allows you to scan multiple batches in a single stack and let the software automatically name and organize the files based on the embedded barcode information. This allows you to take full advantage of your automatic document feeding scanner. After all, what’s the point of paying for a high-speed scanner if your scanning speed bottlenecks at the processing stage?
As in OCR based document scanning software, barcode scanning software uses information on the scanned images themselves to name files and place them in the appropriate folders. However, OCR can sometimes incorrectly recognize certain words and phrases, especially when you are trying to scan at lower resolutions to reduce file size and scanning time. This results in having to perform validation and correction, which slows down the process. Barcodes condense all the necessary information in a format that is much easier for computers to decipher, even at lower resolutions, with almost 100% accuracy. This allows you to reduce file size and scanning time without the cost of additional validation and correction.
Read most 1D and 2D bar code formats from scanned document images and PDF files. Separate documents, parse values or match them against existing data. Muti-engine voting algorithm captures barcodes from hard-to-read images.
Learn more about Barcode scanning here.
Turn On Replacement Characters for Barcodes
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
With OCR processing certain characters will read incorrectly in some cases, such as an I reading as a 1 and an O reading as a 0. If this is expected to happen you can set the OCR to use the character replacement feature to replace all instances of the letter O with the number 0.
Barcodes don’t have this issue nearly as much during the recognition process as OCR does, but sometimes it can be beneficial to have this replacement option available for the barcodes as well. This is turned off by default, but can be turned on in the Job Configuration’s XML text.
Instructions for enabling replacement characters in barcodes:
- Right click on the Job Configuration file that you would like to suppress the prompt on and select Open With>Notepad
- Search the XML settings text open in Notepad for this term:
<BARCODE_REPLACE_CHARS> - Set the value between from “False” to “True”. It should look like this:
<BARCODE_REPLACE_CHARS>True</BARCODE_REPLACE_CHARS> - Save and close the file.
Change the Dictionary Separator Value
This is used to change the dictionary separator value when doing thesaurus matching from the default character of | to any character(s) that you want. This can be useful in cases where the values you would like in your list or dictionary might include the pipe character or “|” or “Shift Backslash”
This setting is also used as the delimiter when parsing multiple index field values from bar codes (e.g. field1|field2|field3).
Instructions for changing the dictionary separator value:
- Right click on the Job Configuration file that you would like to suppress the prompt on and select Open With>Notepad
- Search the XML settings text open in Notepad for this term:
<OCR_DICT_SEPARATOR> - Change the value in-between from “|” to any other single character that you want.
- For TAB separation use %TAB%

Can SimpleIndex read bar codes from existing PDF files?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
There are 2 types of PDF files. PDFs created by scanning applications use images, while PDF files created by software or printer drivers use text. SimpleIndex can read bar codes from either type of document.
With image PDFs, SimpleIndex will use normal image barcode recognition. With text PDFs, SimpleIndex can read the value of the barcode from text (if it was created with a font) or convert the PDF to an image and read it (if the bar code is an image).
To read the barcode from text is much faster and all versions of SimpleIndex include the ability to parse the text of PDF file.
Find out more about bar code scanning on our Bar Code Scanning Guide.
- Published in Bar Codes, Import, Office PDF Text Processing
I cannot recognize PDF417 or QR Code bar codes. What does “Advanced “Only” mean?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
This error applies to versions of SimpleIndex prior to version 7. All current versions of SimpleIndex include 2D barcode recognition. The Barcode and Professional licenses include the faster and more accurate Accusoft bar code recognition engine. In order to enable the Accusoft engine with a Server license you need the Advanced Barcode Server add-on.
For SimpleIndex 6 and below:
2D Barcode Recognition (aka Advanced Barcode) is licensed separately from the standard barcode recognition. You can add 2D Barcode Recognition to SimpleIndex Barcode or Full versions. A second serial number must be activated to enable this feature.
Advanced Barcode also removes the 6 barcodes per second limit on recognition speed. Processing will go 5-20 times faster depending on your processor speed. Advanced Barcode recognition speed and 2D formats are enabled in the demo.
Find out more about barcode scanning on our Barcode Scanning Guide.
The Feature Matrix included with our Pricelist has more detail about the which capability and engines are included with the different editions and add-ons of SimpleIndex.
- Published in Bar Codes, Licensing & Installation
Can I split TIFF or PDF files based on barcodes as a separator and also name the file with the barcode value?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
Yes you can split TIFF and PDF files using barcodes as well as name files using the values from barcodes.
To do this simply create a barcode field and check the “Filename” and “Forward” options for that field on the Index tab.
The “Filename” option means the barcode values will be used to name the files. The “Forward” option means the barcode value will be carried forward to pages after it that don’t have barcodes.
- Published in Bar Codes, SimpleCoversheet
Will SimpleIndex read multiple barcodes on a page and save the value to the appropriate index field?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
Yes, it can. By default barcodes on any page are read left to right and top to bottom. The first barcode read on the page will be filled into the first barcode field set up in SimpleIndex and so on. You can also narrow down results by matching against a template or dictionary as well as excluding barcodes that are not in a defined zone.
- Published in Bar Codes
Is there a way to just use part of a bar code or OCR value? For example, extract “50” from the value “124450”
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
To do this example, create a barcode field (Field 1 for example) and a 2nd field with type “Fixed”. In the template for the 2nd field, enter %FIELD1[5,2]% to get “50” from “124450”.
%FIELD1% would get the entire value for Field #1, the barcode field. By adding the [5,2] you tell SimpleIndex to start at the 5th character (5) and take 2 characters from the value (50).
Find out more about barcode scanning on our Barcode Scanning Guide and read up on Optical Character Recognition on the SimpleOCR scanning solutions guide.
- Published in Bar Codes, OCR, Office PDF Text Processing
How can I delete the barcode or blank page cover/separator sheet that I don’t need to save?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Bar Code Recognition reference.
To delete any barcode page go into ‘Options’, to the ‘Barcode’ Tab and click the ‘Delete barcode page’ check box.
Blank page deletion is done through the minimum file size threshold located in ‘Options’ in the ‘Batch’ Tab. The option is called ‘Min. File Size (blank pages)’ and it has a field which you can enter numeric values on the left. The number corresponds to the number of pixels or bytes on the page.
To pick a number that will delete the blank pages and keep the pages with information you want, look at your largest blank page and your smallest page with information that you want saved and make the ‘Min. File Size (blank pages)’ number in between that.
For example, one of your largest blank pages is 4KB and one of your smallest pages with information is 8KB. You want to make the number in the ‘Min. File Size (blank pages)’ field in between 4000 and 8000. 6000 would be a good number to start with in this situation. At first, you will want to make sure this number is keeping all the pages you need and deleting those you do not want. Increase this number if blank pages are being saved; decrease it if pages with information are being deleted.
- Published in Bar Codes, SimpleCoversheet
Some pages in my documents have unwanted barcodes that are being read. How can I exclude these from recognition?
Please refer to the Wiki Documentation for the complete Barcode Options reference.
There are several methods for doing this. The fastest, most effective method is to enter a Template for your barcodes to ensure only barcodes that match a specific pattern will be used for that field.
Unfortunately it is not always possible to define a template to describe your barcode. In this case you can employ these methods:
-Specify the “Barcode Type” for the barcodes you want.
-If the wanted barcodes appear on a cover sheet with other barcodes on it, select “Pages with > 1 Barcode” from the “Pages to Process” option.
-If the documents use cover sheets and are quite large, it can be more efficient to scan them one at a time. In this case you can select “First Page Only” from the “Pages to Process” option. This will dramatically improve performance as well, since recognition can be skipped for all but the first page.
-You can set the zone coordinates for a Barcode field using the same method as OCR. Barcodes outside this zone will be ignored.
If multiple barcode zones are drawn, all zones will be searched for all barcodes. This means if a barcode matching the template for Field 1 is found in the zone for Field 2 it will still be read. Only barcodes outside of all zones will be ignored.
Find out more about barcode scanning on our Barcode Scanning Guide.
- Published in Bar Codes
How can I use barcodes or blank pages as Document Separators.
For processes that require fast separation for each document a barcode or blank sheet can be used. Simply insert the barcode sheet (generic barcode sheet with the same value on each sheet) or blank sheet as the first page of each document before scanning or processing with SimpleIndex.
There are two different methods for document separation, which either use just one SimpleIndex Job Configuration file or two that run in tandem. The advantage on just using one is that you can keep everything for the process together in one configuration file. The advantage to using two is that you can have the barcode/blank separation process happen automatically and then once separated the user can view the documents for indexing the second job configuration.
How the separation works in SimpleIndex is by having the software increment an autonumber every time it sees a Barcode or Blank Page. It then names the files with the autonumber or uses the autonumber to group the pages together depending on if you are using a one or two Job Configuration process.
One Job Configuration Instructions
- Create a Job Configuration.
- Set-up a Barcode Index Field in the Indexing & File Naming step or set the Blank Page Deletion in the Image Enhancement Step.
- Create an Autonumber index field in the Indexing & File Naming step.
- Set the number that you want to start on in the template of the Autonumber index field. Starting with “00001” is a good choice for this.
- In the Advanced Setting step expand Autonumber Settings and set the Autonumber Increment Event either to Barcode Field Found or Every Blank Page depending of if you are using Barcodes or Blank Pages as separators.
- Also check the box labeled “Combine pages into documents after processing” in this same step
Two Job Configurations Instructions
- Create a Job Configuration.
- Set-up a Barcode Index Field in the Indexing & File Naming step or set the Blank Page Deletion in the Image Enhancement Step.
- Create an Autonumber index field in the Indexing & File Naming step.
- Set the number that you want to start on in the template of the Autonumber index field. Starting with “00001” is a good choice for this.
- Check the Filename checkbox for the Autonumber field.
- In the Advanced Setting step expand Autonumber Settings and set the Autonumber Increment Event either to Barcode Field Found or Every Blank Page depending of if you are using Barcodes or Blank Pages as separators.
- Also check the box labeled “Combine pages into documents after processing” in this same step
- Create a second Job Configuration file that has the Input folder set to the same folder that the Output folder was set to in the first Job Configuration that separates with the Autonumber field.
- Uncheck “Split-Multi-Page Files” in the File Input step
- Configure the Index fields that you would like to assign to the documents that have been split in the first Job Configuration
- Open the first Job Configuration and set the second Job Configuration to run after it is complete by going to the Advanced Settings step, expanding Pre-Process & Post-Process and then putting in the full path to the configuration file in the Post-Process field.
EX. The second job configuration is named “Step 2 Naming.sic” and is in C:\Images then this would be put in the Post-Process: C:\Images\Step 2 Naming.sic
Related Links
- Published in Bar Codes, SimpleCoversheet
Why are my barcodes not being recognized properly?
Several factors can affect barcode recognition.
-Scan in Black & White instead of color. Barcode recognition must convert color to B&W which can decrease quality.
-Print barcodes with a laser printer. Dot-matrix barcodes are very difficult to read accurately.
-Check your Zone settings. If there are zone coordinates defined for any barcode fields, only barcodes in those regions will be recognized.
-Check the barcode format. Code 39 (the most common font-based barcode) requires a * at the start and end of each barcode for it to be readable. Many document barcodes are missing this character.
-Check the barcode engine. SimpleIndex uses the DTK engine (included with Standard, OCR, Barcode and Pro) and the Accusoft engine (included with Barcode and Pro) to recognize barcodes on the page. You can pick the one the desired engine or pick Voting to use both engines.
-Check the barcode type. Select “Unknown or All” if you don’t know the type. If you do know the type, select it from the list to prevent false positives.
-Check the Template setting. If the template does not match the barcode exactly it will appear as though no barcode is read. Remove the template to see what is being recognized.
-Check the Pages to Process. This option tells it which pages to process in the entire batch, so normally the default setting of Every Page is best, so each page is read to determine if it has a barcode.
-Check the “Minimum Confidence” value. A higher value will prevent false positives (incorrect values) but may cause fewer barcodes to be read. If a barcode is detected on a page it will be enhanced and re-read until all barcodes are read above the minimum confidence level. 0 will disable re-reading.
-Check “Enhanced Analysis (Slower)”. By checking this box extra checks will be done on the each page to find the barcode at the cost of processing speed.
Related Pages
- Published in Bar Codes
Barcode Scanning Guide
So you want to organize your documents using barcodes? That is an excellent idea! Not only will it improve the speed and accuracy of your document management workflow, but it is easier to set up than it sounds.
The guide is written to give you real information instead of marketing, but you can follow the links links to read about the relevant features of SimpleIndex and other document management solutions on ScanStore.
Other Useful Guides
Scanning Guides? Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Read no further! Contact our experts and we’ll configure the whole scanning process for you remotely using the demo version of SimpleIndex!

Why use barcodes in document scanning?
There are many benefits to using barcodes while scanning your documents.
Traditional scanning methods require you to scan your documents in pre-separated batches and then manually name and organize the resulting files. Barcode scanning, on the other hand, allows you to scan multiple batches in a single stack and let the software automatically name and organize the files based on the embedded barcode information. This allows you to take full advantage of your automatic document feeding scanner. After all, what’s the point of paying for a high-speed scanner if your scanning speed bottlenecks at the processing stage?
As in OCR based document scanning software, barcode scanning software uses information on the scanned images themselves to name files and place them in the appropriate folders. However, OCR can sometimes incorrectly recognize certain words and phrases, especially when you are trying to scan at lower resolutions to reduce file size and scanning time. This results in having to perform validation and correction, which slows down the process. Barcodes condense all the necessary information in a format that is much easier for computers to decipher, even at lower resolutions, with almost 100% accuracy. This allows you to reduce file size and scanning time without the cost of additional validation and correction.
What is the difference between the various types of barcodes?
Barcodes come in many standards, but they can all be grouped into two general flavors:
1D (linear) barcodes and 2D (matrix) barcodes.
Linear barcodes are composed of parallel lines of varying widths and distances from each other, such as the UPC’s that are scanned from your purchases with a laser barcode reader at most stores.
Matrix barcodes are usually square (though sometimes circular) arrangements of smaller squares, circles, or triangles, such as the QR codes that you can scan with your phone from many modern advertisements. Matrix barcodes can pack more information per unit of area than their linear counterparts, but not all software is designed to read them.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to using one standard over
another. In addition to the amount of information that can be stored and the
capability of your particular scanning software in deciphering it, some
standards have additional functions such as checksums, which automatically
validate whether or not the barcode was read correctly. A few common standards
used in the document scanning business are listed below:
- 1D Barcode standards include:Codabar
- 2D Barcode standards include:
Where do you get barcodes for document scanning?
Now that you know a little bit about barcodes and why you should use them, you might be wondering how to apply them to your documents. There are a few different methods, depending on your situation.
If you can still edit the document, your best bet would be to use a special barcode font, which will allow you to type a string of characters or digits directly into a barcode format on your document using a regular keyboard. You can find many barcode fonts online for both download and purchase, with some that are purely decorative and others that match to a particular industry standard. We particularly recommend BarcodesInc.com as a source of a good free barcode font.
Often, files cannot be edited due to access, permission, or simply because they are already printed out. For instance, if you are scanning a backlog of files, it becomes difficult to add barcodes to the existing pages. Have no fear! You can still use barcode scanning by either applying barcode marked stickers, such as Avery lables, onto a blank area on the first page of each document or by printing out and inserting coversheets to separate the files.
With applications such as SimpleCoversheet, you can create one-off coversheets or link it up to a data source and automate creating a separator for every customer folder in your filing cabinet.
What scanner settings are best for barcode recognition?
While barcodes are naturally more accurate than text-based document management, there are still ways to ensure a higher degree of recognition. Resolution plays a part, and although barcodes are more forgiving than OCR, 300dpi is still the recommended resolution for the highest degree of accuracy. Likewise, since most barcodes encode information in the contrast between black and white areas of the page, bitonal (black-and-white) scanning is preferred over the anti-aliasing effects of greyscale and color scanning. You can also adjust the brightness and contrast options in your scanner settings to improve recognition on documents where the barcode is not being read.
What are the guidelines to ensure barcodes will be read?
The way barcodes are printed also has an effect on how easily they will be recognized. Coversheet software usually
has formatting standards built in to ensure that barcodes are printed in a way that can be recognized by scanning software.
There are both minimum and maximum sizes that barcodes can be scaled to while remaining useful – usually ranging between 80% – 200% of the suggested size. The suggested size varies by standard, but the most common width is around 1.5″. Keep in mind that there should also be at least a 0.3″ clean margin between the barcode edge and any other markings to avoid confusing the software.
The different barcode standards have varying amount of error correction built in, allowing for more and less compact barcodes with the same level of accuracy at equivalent scan settings. There are also error detection methods, such as check-sum, which act as redundancy checks by running the data through an algorithm and confirming that the result is equal to a small, easily recognized part of the barcode.
What are the limitations of reading barcodes?
As with any automated process, barcode recognition has some limitations. Different scanning applications use different barcode recognition engines, which are the prebuilt blocks of code that perform the actual recognition. As with any software, some of these engines are better and/or faster than others at the same job, and they vary in the types of barcodes that they can recognize. You must make sure that your scanning software has the capability of accurately recognizing the barcode standards you use.
Regardless of the software that you use, image quality will play a factor. While barcodes simplify the format that data is encoded in, reducing the margin for error, degraded barcode images can still cause the engine to incorrectly read the data encoded therein. Degradation can happen digitally or physically. Digital degradation can occur when an image is shrunk to a smaller resolution and then sized back up or when an image is copied too many times and thus accrues artifacts and other transcription errors. Physical degradation can occur when a printed barcode is smeared, worn, torn, or marked upon prior to scanning. Both of these alter the contrast and precise distances between parts of the barcode that determine the data that is encoded.
Learn More:









Document Barcode Recognition
This video shows how barcode recognition can be used with our 1-click processing feature to index files quickly, easily, and accurately.
If you are unfamiliar with the use of barcodes in document scanning, you can learn more about barcodes in our Barcode Scanning Guide.
With a single click, a batch of documents is imported, barcodes are recognized, and files are exported to organized folders and filenames, as well as a SimpleSearch document database.
In the second part of the video, a SimpleSearch configuration is used to search and view the files processed in the first part.
Barcode Recognition
Indexing Solutions with Barcode Recognition
Barcode recognition is the most efficient way to capture index data printed on documents. If you are unfamiliar with the use of barcodes in document scanning, you can learn more about barcodes in our Barcode Scanning Guide, but if you want to know more about barcode use with SimpleSoftware products, read on.
Some documents already have key information in barcode format on them. In many cases adding a barcode to a document is as simple as changing or adding a font. Adding barcodes to new documents is preferable as all the index data is on the document at the time it is created and in a format that can be read with near 100% accuracy.
As an alternative to placing barcodes on the individual documents, it is possible to print out a barcode cover page and place it on the file before it is scanned. The SimpleCoversheet application was designed to make this easy by providing a simple interface for selecting index values and printing a standard coversheet that contains these values in barcode format.
Barcode recognition can also be useful when you have documents with a variable number of pages that will all receive the same index values. If it is not possible to generate an indexed coversheet for these at the time they are created, a generic barcode coversheet can be used to separate the scanned images into multi-page files, one for each document. A second process can then be used to index these images one file at a time instead of one page at a time, greatly increasing throughput.
Barcode Recognition Features
With SimpleIndex Barcode you can:
- Read barcodes printed on scanned paper documents
- Read barcodes embedded in PDF files
- Automatically rename files based on barcodes
- Export barcode data to CSV file or any database
- Separate multi-page documents with cover pages
- Recognize 2D formats like PDF417, DataMatrix, Aztec and QR Code
- Recognize 30 different 1D barcode formats
Code 39, Codabar, UPC, Code 128, EAN 13, 2 of 5, etc. - Recognize postal barcodes like Planet, PostNet, Royal Post and Australian Post
- Lookup barcode values in a database for additional data
- Complete list of document scanning & indexing features
With SimpleCoversheet you can:
- Create barcode coversheets for use with SimpleIndex and other scanning applications
- Print barcodes on Avery label templates that can be applied to documents
- Affordably enable every employee to print barcodes
- Create coversheets that allow SimpleIndex to automatically index and file documents
- Enable scanning and indexing from MFPs, network scanners and digital copiers
- Perform “mail merge” with barcodes to print many coversheets at once
- Supports many 1D and 2D barcode formats