Document Zones are areas on the document that are defined to accomplish one of the following tasks:
ØChecking for a stamp, signature or similar mark on a document.
If a zone is defined on a document in which a rubber stamp, signature or some other essential mark is required for a document to be considered as ‘valid’ or acceptable to enter the scanning process, then it is possible for Scan2x to test at point of scanning whether that zone actually has a mark in it. It is NOT possible to verify the authenticity of that signature or mark – only that a mark exists. In other words, that the defined zone is not empty. This can be very useful when scanning documents such as delivery orders, invoices, bank cheques, contracts, etc, in which signatures or other similar marks are expected to be in specific locations.
ØTo send a specific part of a document to another job definition.
There exist situations in which a document is scanned in its entirety to go to destination ‘A’, yet we also require to send a sub-set of that document (e.g., pages 2-5 only) to destination ‘B’. Scan2x can do this completely automatically using Zone Definitions. By defining the sub-set as a zone within the larger document, it is then possible to direct a copy of that Zone to a different job button, which we shall call the Receiver Job. In this example, the user scans the complete document using a job in which the sub-set is defined as a Zone. Scan2x will recognize the sub-set as being a separate zone and will send a copy of it to the receiver job, which will process it in the background as though pages 2-5 were scanned through it in a conventional manner.
More about this in the Document Zone Definition section below.
This functionality has also been used to process application forms to which a photograph has been affixed. In this scenario it is necessary to scan in colour in order to preserve the photographic data, but we do not wish to retain a scan of the whole application document in colour due to storage and bandwidth considerations. We therefore define a zone around the photograph. We then scan the document in colour, extract the photograph using the Zone and send it to a job set up to handle and store the colour photo, convert the application document to black and white using Post Processing, and send to destination.
Press the Manage Zones button to enter the Zone Definition screen.
Document Zone Definition
The above screen shows the definition of a document zone at bottom left, outlined in red. Zones can be defined by clicking and dragging an area over the document template with the mouse – this will create a fixed zone definition in terms of both size and position. Defining zones like this is enough for most documents, however it is sometimes necessary to define a zone of a specific size whose position is relative to something else on the page – for example, a word or phrase.
To do this Scan2x uses Zone Anchoring.
Zone Anchoring
This function requires a Document Template to have been imported before it can be used.
An anchor is a word or phrase linked to the defined zone position. By drawing a zone (the area outlined in the screenshot red below) and then defining a word or phrase (the words “Delivered by” highlighted in blue above), Scan2x system remembers the relative positions of the zone to the phrase. During scan time Scan2x first identifies the location of the word or phrase anchor, and dynamically sets the zone position relative to the anchor. This allows for variations in position of the zone due to either variations on the document being scanned or differences in paper pick-up mechanisms between one scanner model and another.
As can be seen on the right-side of the screen in the image below, under the Anchoring tab, the Anchor Before Post-Processing checkbox allows the administrator to anchor zones before any post-processing changes are applied to the document. For example, if there is a post-processing option applied where the whole document page only shows the colour 'blue', then the administrator would need to tick this checkbox so the zone will be anchored accordingly. If this checkbox is not ticked, the zone will not manage to find its anchor. For more information about post-processing, please see the Post-Processing Tab.
The OCR Engine dropdown allows the administrator to select what OCR Engine they would like to use for specific zones. If one leaves the option as 'Field Default', Scan2x will then use the OCR Engine that is specified in the Scan Settings tab.
Once an OCR Engine is selected, the OCR Language option will be available. This option allows administrators to choose the language they will be OCRing in order to find the anchor/s.
The Document Zone Definition screen is used to create Zones within your document, name them and physically mark out their boundaries.
Thumbnails of each page in the Document Template are displayed at far left, and these can be used to switch between the different pages of the document.
At the top-right of the screen, there is a Preview Post-Processing checkbox, which allows the administrator to preview any post-processing options made which would have been applied in the Post-Processing Tab.
On the right-hand side, the Add New Zone and Remove Zone buttons allow you to add and remove Zone definitions from within this job button definition.
On the right-hand side of the screen under the General tab, there is an Apply to dropdown which include the options Page 1 or Last Page in order to specify where Scan2x should look for this zone in either a single or multi-page document.
The Send Zone as a scan to job dropdown is used to send the content of this zone to the selected job in the dropdown.
The Auto-Save triggered Job checkbox will auto save the job mentioned in the Send Zone as a scan to job dropdown option when ticked.
The Blank detection confidence setting allows the administrator to change the blank detection level per zone per job. The Test blank detection button when clicked, will show the administrator whether the zone is empty or not in order for the administrator to adjust the confidence level if needed.
To create a new zone, click the Add New Zone button and enter a name for the new Zone. Use the scroll bars to move the displayed page up and down so that the area you wish the zone to cover is all displayed and draw a box around the area of the page on screen that you wish the zone to encompass. If using a touch-screen interface, the ‘draw box’ function on screen is initiated by double-tapping in the screen in the position of the top-left corner of your intended zone-box, and then dragging your finger down and to the right to open the box around your intended zone. If using a mouse, double click at top left of your intended box and then drag down and to the right.
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