Glossary of Terms

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A

ABBYY FormDesigner ABBYY FormDesigner is a software application for creating machine-readable forms that will be processed using ABBYY FlexiCapture. Form design is an important stage of form creation, because all the other stages –– scanning, recognition, verification, and export –– depend on the “correctness” of the initial form and its suitability for machine processing. Anchor Element of a machine-readable form that is used for matching a form with its template and determining its orientation during processing.

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B

black and white linear form These forms usually have no background. All field borders (character cells, checkmark fields and other form elements) are made up of solid black lines. black and white form with raster backgrounds Fields on such forms are simply white spaces (usually rectangles) on a raster background. The background is made up of individual dots. black and white form with raster borders These forms have no background. All field borders (borders of character cells, checkmark fields and other form elements) are made up of raster lines, i.e. sequences of small black dots.

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C

Character cell Small rectangle into which only one character should be entered (e.g. a letter or a digit). Checkmark field Element of a machine-readable form (usually a check box) in which a mark (e.g. a check, a cross, etc.) is made by the person filling out the form.

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D

Dropout form These forms have a light color background with white rectangles serving as character cells, checkmark fields, etc.

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E

Entry field Element of a machine-readable form into which text will be entered by the person filling out the form.

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F

Frame Element of a machine-readable form that encloses an area on a form. Form A document consisting of one or more pages and filled in by hand or using a printer or typewriter. Form creation Process consists of the following stages: analysis, design and printing. Form identifier Element of a machine-readable form that allows the forms processing program to identify each form. Form publication When publishing a form you assign it Published status, which prohibits changes to the form. At the same time the form will be checked for machine-readability and the form identifiers are assigned a unique number (the same for all the identifiers). Form sample A sample that can be used to create new forms in ABBYY FormDesigner. Samples are stored as binary files and have the extension *.dtf.

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G

Group of elements Element of a machine-readable form which combines several logically connected elements.

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L

Line separator Element of a machine-readable form in the shape of a vertical or horizontal black line.

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M

Machine-readable form A form that can be processed by computer. Machine-readability Suitability of a form for automated processing.

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P

Page identifier Element of a machine-readable form that allows the forms processing program to identify each page of a form. Page sample A sample that can be used to create new pages in ABBYY FormDesigner. Samples are stored as binary files and have the extension *.ptf. Picture Element of a machine-readable form that contains an image.

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R

Reference mark Element of a machine-readable form that is used for matching a form with its template and determining its orientation during processing. Requirements for machine-readable forms Requirements for the type and appearance of the form, as well as for the positioning of form elements. When these requirements are observed the highest possible recognition quality is achieved.

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T

Table Element of a machine-readable form that contains columns of elements of the same type. Text Element of a machine-readable form that contains descriptions and explanatory text, such as field names, instructions on how to fill out the form, etc.

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X

XFD format XML Form Definition (*.xfd) is the format of form files created in ABBYY FormDesigner. XML Form Definition files can be automatically converted into Document Definition for ABBYY FlexiCapture.