Zone Configuration

The ribbon menu has the following buttons.

Group Button Description
Zone Profiles Save Zone Profiles

Saves the zone settings for the current profile.

Select Profile

Opens the Zone Definition Profile Selection dialog box, where you can select a profile to use for zone configuration or import/export zone definition profiles.

New Profile

Creates a new, blank zone profile for editing.

Copy Current Profile

Duplicates profiles for other documents by copying the current profile.

Delete Current Profile

Deletes the current profile.

Template Select Template Image

Loads a template image for the current profile. Supported image types are: TIF, TIFF, JPG, JPEG, JP2, PDF, PNG, BMP, GIF.

Capture Template Image

Captures a template image from a capture device.

Commands Rerun Auto Zone Creation

No longer requires a new template image to be loaded each time it is to be used.

The following toolbar commands are available for zone creation above the viewer pane.

Toolbar button Description
??? Pointer

Standard mouse pointer (selected by default).

??? Draw Zone (Ctrl + 1)

Manually draw an OCR zone.

??? Draw OMR Zone (Ctrl + 2)

Manually draw and OMR zone.

??? Draw OCR Smart Zone (Ctrl + 3)

Manually draw a Smart Zone. See OCR Smart Zone Configuration.

??? Draw OMR Smart Zone (Ctrl + 4)

Manually draw a smart OMR zone.

??? Draw Precision OMR Zone (Ctrl + 5)

Manually draw a precision OMR zone.

Auto Sized Zones

Select from a list how to draw a new zone on the described area.

You can define dynamic zones (Full Page, Bottom Half, and so on) that change size based on the size of the image being processed. When adding a new Auto Sized Zone, you are prompted to select whether you want this zone to be a dynamic zone.

If you want to change the dynamic zone setting on an existing zone, click the ??? Zone Advanced Settings button and select Enable dynamic bounds... in the Advanced Settings For Zone dialog box.

Dynamic zones are not limited to just zones created using the Auto Sized Zone list. Any standard zone or Smart Zone can have the Enable dynamic bounds... setting enabled.

??? Make Copy of Current Zone

Repeat a zone (use this function to speed up OMR configuration).

??? Delete Selected Zones

Delete the selected zones.

Users can use the delete key on their keyboard to delete the selected zone.

Grouping Tools

Group multiple zones for OMR purposes.

  • Create OMR Zone

  • Create Multi-Record Line Item Zone

  • Copy Multi-Record Line Item Activation Patterns

Zone Display

Display either all zones or only the selected zone.

??? Selection Zoom (Ctrl + Z)

Select an area to zoom to.

??? Zoom In / Out

Increase or decrease the size of the image.

??? Rotate Left / Right

Rotate the document image left or right.

The General tab is open by default, where you can define and configure zones.

To define zones, zoom in to the desired area on the viewer pane (with the Zoom In toolbar icon), then select the Draw Zone toolbar icon and draw the zone.

Drawn zones are listed in the Zones pane. Name the drawn zone and fill out which page of the document it is expected to be found on. The zones in the list can be used anywhere in the program where the user can define zones.

Users can view via the drop-down names of mapped index fields when creating a new field.

Users can double-click a drawn zone in the viewer pane or click the respective Edit Zone icon in the Zones pane to edit its anchors and child zones.

The page and resolution of the template are displayed at the bottom of the screen. They must match the actual page and resolution at capture time.

In the Zones pane, a set of icons are available.

Icon Description
Edit Zone

Opens the OCR Smart Zone Configuration dialog box and allows editing of child zones, anchors, and more.

Delete Zone

Deletes the zone.

If a zone is in use by any capture profile, the zone cannot be deleted.

Image Processing

Applies image processing to the zone template image.

Zone Preview

Previews OCR (printed text), ICR (handwritten text), MICR (E-13B), or MICR (CMC-7) results in the selected zone.

Ungroup Child Zones

Ungroups a cluster of child zones contained within the selected zone (child zones are used for OMR purposes).

Zone Advanced Settings (OmniPage)

Opens a dialog box, where you can configure the advanced settings of the zone, depending on the used recognition engine. This description is for the OmniPage engine.

Enable spell check: This feature accounts for everyday norms when generating results. For example, spell check ensures a number such as 34567 would not be read as 34S67, as it is unlikely that the letter S would appear within a list of numbers. If your images are of high quality (computer-generated) and a zone contains data that breaks everyday norms (in the example above, contains letters and numbers) disable this option for the zone to improve your OCR results.

Enable vertical dictionaries: Vertical dictionaries are seen in the legal, medical, and financial fields, and the OmniPage engine supports several languages with vertical orientations.

Text direction: Specify the direction of the text for the OmniPage OCR engine to read from:

  • Horizontal: Standard text on a horizontal plane, from left to right.

  • Auto: Automatically determine the orientation of the text during recognition.

  • Left: Limit OCR to only the standard horizontal plane from left to right.

  • Right: Read text from right to left on the horizon plane.

  • Vertical text (CCJK only): Support for Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean (only) in vertical text orientation.

Auto-detect hand-printed text (ICR): Automatically detect hand-printed text (ICR) and adjust recognition settings accordingly. This feature is an enhanced version of the legacy feature "Machine Print Font Type - Unknown". Only subregions classified as machine print are further processed. Hence, there is some risk that low-quality machine print subregions are missing in the final result, for they might have erroneously been classified as handwriting.

Enable dynamic bounds for this zone...: Automatically resize zones based on the dimensions of the captured page. For example, if a zone is defined to encompass the top half of an 8.5" x 11" page, and an 8.5" x 5" page is captured, the zone's height is automatically adjusted to cover only the top half of the page.

Zone Advanced Settings (RecoStar)

Opens a dialog box, where you can configure the advanced settings of the zone, depending on the used recognition engine. This description is for the deprecated RecoStar engine.

Enable OCR logical context filtering: OCR logical context filtering enforces logical rules when generating results. For example, the number 4567 would not be read as 4S67, because it is unlikely that the letter S would appear in a list of numbers. If your images are of high quality (computer-generated) and a zone contains data that breaks logical rules, disable this option for the zone to improve your OCR results.

Enable OCR Trigram mode: Trigram post-processing uses language model statistics to try and correct recognition results in natural language sequences. Disabling Trigram mode can improve recognition results on zones that contain random sequences of letters and numbers (for example, part numbers, invoice numbers).

Machine print font type: The options include Unknown and Machine Type.

If Machine Type is selected, machine-print recognition is activated. All text detected in the input area is treated like machine print (handwriting included).

Selecting Unknown activates automatic handwriting detection. Only subregions classified as machine print are further processed. Hence, there is some risk that low-quality machine print subregions are missing in the final result, as they might have erroneously been classified as handwriting.

Machine type pitch: The options include Unknown and Variable.

In rare instances, the default value Unknown can cause misreads in zones that contain a mixture of numbers, characters, and letters. For example, "25-IN" would be read as "254N". In these cases, switch the machine type pitch to Variable.

Enable dynamic bounds...: Select this option to automatically resize zones based on the dimensions of the captured page. For example, if a zone is defined to encompass the top half of an 8.5" x 11" page, and an 8.5" x 5" page is captured, the zone's height is automatically adjusted to cover only the top half of the page.

On the Anchoring tab, clicking Add opens the Zone Anchor Configuration dialog box, where you can configure zone anchors.

Anchor name: A unique name to identify the anchor.

Process anchor on all pages: Select this box to use this anchor on all pages of the batch.

Anchoring type: Select from the following anchor types:

  • Default (Top Left of Page)

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.

  • Fixed Point

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.

    • Anchor Point: Select the position of the anchor point.

  • Bar Code

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.

    • Bar code type: Select from the list of supported bar code types.

    • Bar code pattern: Enter the bar code value for the bar code intended to use for anchoring.

      The selected type and pattern must match.

    • Edit: Opens the Regular Expression Editor.

    • Preview: Opens the Bar Code Recognition Preview dialog box.

  • Patch Code

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.

    • Patch code type: Select from the list of supported patch code types.

    • Patch code number: Select the Nth patch code on the page for anchoring.

    • Preview: Opens the Patch Code Recognition Preview dialog box.

  • Zone OCR Expression

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.

    • Zone OCR text: Enter specific text for OCR to detect.

    • Edit: Opens the Regular Expression Editor.

    • Zone to search: A list of areas where the anchor can be searched for.

      • Entire page

      • Currently configured zones

  • Precision OMR Timing Tracks

    • Page image: Select main, original, or alternate image.

    • Alternate image tag: Enter the tag name to be associated with the alternate image.