Zone OCR is used to read document indexes or tags from text on the page. It is a great way to automate the data entry associated with scanning documents.

However, there are several limitations to zone OCR that must be overcome:

  • Index information must be in the exact same place on every page
  • Documents shift and skew during scanning, causing the zones to not line up
  • If surrounding lines or text on the document are too close, they can encroach on the zone

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 setting is also used as the delimiter when parsing multiple index field values from bar codes (e.g. field1|field2|field3). Right click on the SimpleIndex Configuration File (.sic file format) and Open With a text editor (Notepad, Wordpad, etc.).Then do a search for the following value:OCR_DICT_SEPARATORChange the | in the following to the desired separator value:<OCR_DICT_SEPARATOR>|<OCR_DICT_SEPARATOR> For TAB separation use %TAB%To enable the find and replace function configured on the OCR tab to run on the barcode values before template/dictionary matching​<BARCODE_REPLACE_CHARS>true</BARCODE_REPLACE_CHARS>
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Change the OCR Font or Type

This is used to changed the default OCR recognition font or type from the default, which is “To Be Detected” 1.  Right click on the .sic file and select Open With a text editor (Notepad, Wordpad, etc.) 2.  Find <OCR_TEXT_TYPE>.  If you can’t find <OCR_TEXT_TYPE> then add the following as the last row in the text file:   <OCR_TEXT_TYPE>#</OCR_TEXT_TYPE> 3.  Change the number in between:  <OCR_TEXT_TYPE>#</OCR_TEXT_TYPE> 4.  Number of desired font:             0  Normal1  Typewriter 2  Dotmatrix 3  Index4  Handprinted5  OCR A  6  OCR B 7  MICR E13B  8  MICR CMC7   9  Gothic       10  To Be Detected    
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Regular Expression (RegEx) – Syntax or Type

The Syntax or Type of Regular Expression/RegEx that SimpleIndex uses is .NET

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I’m using full page OCR. The information is all appearing in the txt file but it is losing format about half way through. Data to the right is ending up at the end of the txt doc. Can this be fixed?

SimpleIndex version 7 solves this problem with the incorporation of the FineReader OCR engine. Full text in PDFs will now flow with the formatting of the PDF.

Legacy Versions: SimpleIndex can also be used with other OCR applications and servers to improve accuracy, formatting and performance. Use the OCR applications to convert the scanned images to text or searchable PDF, and SimpleIndex can extract index values from the text and automatically sort and organize the files.

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Is there a way to just use part of a bar code or OCR value? For example, extract “50” from the value “124450”

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.

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How do you train the OCR engine for better accuracy?

Training has been removed with version 7 due to the addition of the ABBYY FineReader OCR engine.

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How do you configure full text searching in Retrieval mode?

On the Database tab there dropdown in the lower portion of the panel for Full Text OCR Field. Put the name of the field that will store the full-text data there. This must be configured both for Insert and Retrieval mode configurations. The database field needs to be sufficient length to store the entire text of your document. Of course, the Insert Mode configuration must have “Enable Full Page OCR” checked to generate full text data from images. Text from MS Office documents, PDF files and existing OCR text files can be used without setting this option. When designing your Retrieval Mode configuration, create a Text field to use for full text search queries. On the Database tab, set the corresponding “Database Field Name” to the full text database field. When searching on your full text field, SimpleIndex finds the text you enter no matter where it appears in the document. It is able to match partial words. It does not perform boolean or natural language search

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How can I improve recognition rates for my OCR fields?

There are several things you can do to improve accuracy for OCR. -Scan at 300dpi, black & white for best results. -Adjust the scan settings to remove background noise and improve the definition of characters. -For Zone OCR, field recognition can often vary based on the surrounding white space and text in the zone. Try varying the size of the zone to achieve optimal results. -For template matching, make sure all variations of the field format are included in the template list. -For dictionary matching, add common variations and OCR mistakes to the “thesaurus” list. -On the Zones & OCR tab (accessed from the Job Options) you can adjust the Max Errors setting to allow for more mistakes in the dictionary matching process. -Use the Strip Spaces, Strip Characters, Replace Characters and Case Fixing options to standardize the field format prior to matching. Please refer to the manual for details on how to configure these options. Find out more about Optical Character Recog

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Can OCR text be saved to MS Word or HTML formats?

Yes. On the Zones & OCR tab of the Job Options, there is a dropdown list for “Full-page OCR file type”. By default it is set to TEXT, but can be changed to WORD, HTML or PDF.

If the output file type is set to PDF, OCR text will be embedded as hidden text in the PDF file.

Find out more about Optical Character Recognition on the SimpleOCR Guide.

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Can SimpleIndex create searchable PDF Image+Text files with hidden text?

If you enable full-page OCR and output to PDF, the full-page OCR text will be inserted as invisible text on each page.

With the addition of the FineReader Engine in version 7, SimpleIndex now creates PDF files with fully searchable text formatted to flow with the image of the document.

Find out more about Optical Character Recognition on the SimpleOCR Guide.

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Indexing from Applications with Screen OCR

Some documents are difficult or impossible to automate with OCR. For example, documents with non-standard layouts, unconstrained handwriting or very poor scan quality. In applications like invoice processing, fully automating the data entry can require expensive software and weeks of consulting. Even after all that expense, many users miss the interface and data validations that their accounting software entry screens provide. In cases like this, SimpleIndex can help improve data entry efficiency while archiving your scanned originals at the same time. Here’s how it works: Scan a batch of documents for data entry Place the SimpleIndex window side-by-side with your data entry window Enter the data normally, reading from the scanned image in SimpleIndex Press the hotkey combo to transfer the data to SimpleIndex Save the image and repeat with the next one
In this configuration, SimpleIndex captur
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Invoice Processing with Full Page OCR

This job configuration uses a 3-step process to automate the OCR processing: Step 1 uses a full-page OCR process on each image. Field data is extracted from the full-page OCR using template and dictionary matching algorithms. This is done in Pre-Index mode to allow unattended processing. Data is saved to a database so it can be reviewed and corrected in Step 2. Step 2 uses Database Update mode to find images with missing index values and allow the user to manually enter the correct data. Step 3 uses a SimpleSearch configuration to search and view the indexed images, including full text searches. Your browser does not support the video tag.

FAQ Related to Invoice Processing

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Zone OCR with Template Matching

This video shows the Zone OCR Invoice Processing sample job. Zone OCR is the traditional method for extracting index data from printed text appearing in fixed locations on every page. The video also shows how Zone OCR is enhanced with SimpleIndex‘s Template Matching and Dictionary Matching features, giving you much more margin for error than other solutions.  Your browser does not support the video tag.

FAQ Related to Zone OCR

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Zone OCR and Dynamic OCR

Many document scanning solutions use Zone OCR to obtain index data from the page, while SimpleIndex improves upon this time-tested but ultimately limited model with its unique Dynamic OCR feature. Let’s look at the difference between the two methods: Zone OCR Zone OCR is used to read document indexes or tags from text on the page. It is a great way to automate the data entry associated with scanning documents. However, there are several limitations to zone OCR that must be overcome: Index information must be in the exact same place on every pageDocuments shift and skew during scanning, causing the zones to not line upIf surrounding lines or text on the document are too close, they can encroach on the zone Dynamic OCR SimpleIndex overcomes these limitations by using Dynamic OCR technology to locate the desired text even when it moves around on the page. Our simplified version of Dynamic OCR works great for many types of documents at a fraction of the cost of other solutions. Index
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Compare Leading Solutions

The best way to see how the SimpleIndex processing workflow compares to other leading desktop scanning solutions is to see the same process performed side-by-side in each program. Below are videos we recorded of the same batch of documents being scanned and indexed in Kofax Express™, Kodak Capture Pro™, PaperVision™ Capture Express and Office Gemini DiamondVision™. In each one we configured the software to perform the same tasks: Scan a batch of 10 pages Capture a 7-digit account number using Zone OCR Correct any fields that fail to recognize Use a database lookup to populate additional index fields Export the batch to PDF files Using our standard benchmark batch* we recorded the following processing times: SimpleIndex: 0:45 Kodak Capture Pro: 1:50 Kofax Express: 2:20 PaperVision Capture Desktop: 3:00 DiamondVision: 3:20 As you will see in the videos below, SimpleIndex provides the most efficient scanning and indexing workflow of any major document capture application. SimpleIndex™ [vi

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Video Demos

These videos demonstrate several ways SimpleIndex® can automatically index different types of documents. If you are new to SimpleIndex, watching these videos is the easiest way to see what it can do. You can follow along using the sample files included in the SimpleIndex Trial. Zone OCR with template matching Document barcode recognition PDF OCR text parsing Sort and index MS Office documents Indexing with full-text OCR Running jobs from an icon The sample files are copied to your Configuration Folder when you run the SimpleIndex Trial for the first time. If you can’t find the samples, copy them with the Global Settings Wizard in the File menu. Compare Major Scanning Solutions Compare the SimpleIndex scanning and indexing workflow to 4 leading desktop document imaging applications–Kofax Express™, Kodak Capture Pro™, PaperVision™ Capture Express and Office Gemini DiamondVision™. Compare SimpleIndex to the competition University of SimpleSoftware Extensive online training vid
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