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To extract data from documents in Advanced Designer, create a Document skill. The activities you use depend on the structure of your documents — Vantage groups documents into four broad categories.

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Document types

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Structured documents

Structured documents (also known as fixed forms) always carry the same fields in the same layout, or in a very small number of layouts. Examples: forms, questionnaires, surveys.
Sample structured document — a form with consistent field positions

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Semi-structured documents

Semi-structured documents carry similar information across documents, but field locations, sizes, and counts vary. Vantage uses spatial and logical relationships between elements to locate the data. Examples: invoices, payment orders, bills of lading.
Sample semi-structured document — an invoice with varying field positions

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Unstructured documents

Unstructured documents are freeform text in paragraphs and sentences, where the fields you need may span pages. Examples: contracts, emails, research articles.
Sample unstructured document — paragraphs of freeform text

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Mixed document sets

A mixed document set contains documents of different types — for example, semi-structured and unstructured together, or single documents that mix the two (paragraphs of plain text alternating with tables).

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Pick a scenario

Once you’ve identified your document type, follow the matching scenario.

Process structured documents

Build skills for forms with fixed or limited layouts.

Process semi-structured documents

Build skills for invoices, bills of lading, and similar varying-layout documents.

Process unstructured documents

Build skills for contracts, emails, and other freeform text.

Process mixed sets

Handle document sets that combine multiple structure types.