> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.abbyy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Type-specific properties of the Separator element

> Configure the Separator search element to find horizontal or vertical separators with controls for orientation, length, and hypothesis quality penalties.

The **Separator** element finds a horizontal or vertical separator — a straight line such as a table border or an underline — detected on the document image during pre-recognition.

The **Separator** element has the following properties in the **What to search for** section:

## Basic properties

* **Orientation** specifies the orientation of the separator: Horizontal, Vertical.
* **Length** specifies the maximum and minimum lengths of the separator, in the user-defined units of measurement.

## Advanced properties

* **Min. relative length** sets the minimum relative length of a separator. This is a number ranging from 0 to 100. The relative length of a separator is calculated as \[length of the separator]/\[length of the search area along the separator]. Objects of smaller relative lengths will be ignored.
* **Penalty limit for length**. The minimum coefficient by which the hypothesis quality may be multiplied as a penalty for its length. When estimating the quality of a hypothesis, the hypothesis may be penalized for the length of the separator: the longer the separator object, the higher the quality of the hypothesis. The highest quality of 1 is assigned to a separator whose length is the same as the search area. When the relative length of the separator decreases from 1 to 0, the quality of the hypothesis decreases in direct proportion from 1 to Penalty limit for length.
* **Fits entirely within search area** specifies that the separator must fit entirely within its search area. Clear this option to find separators which overlap the search area.
* **Max. space length** specifies the maximum distance between two separator objects that can be included in one hypothesis and considered to be one separator.
* **Max. relative length of space** specifies the maximum relative distance between two separator objects that can be included in one hypothesis and considered to be one separator. The relative distance is calculated as follows: \[distance between separator fragments]/\[total length of the separator]. If the **Max. space length** and the **Max. relative length of space** have both been specified, the program will use the shorter of the two distances.
* **Orthogonal shift of space** specifies the maximum relative distance between two parallel separator objects (along a perpendicular line) that can be included in one hypothesis and considered to be one separator.

To display advanced properties, click the advanced mode icon on the **Properties** pane.