Text field - ABBYY Documentation

A Text field extracts a string value from a document, such as a name, address, ID, or other text. The field’s data type (Text, Date, Number, or Money) determines how Vantage recognizes and validates the value.

Add a Text field

Add a Text field in either of these ways:

Click a value on the document image (values highlight green on hover), or drag a rectangle around it. The new field appears in the data form.
Click Add Field in the toolbar, and then drag a rectangle around the value on the image. The data inside the region becomes the field value.

To rename a field, click its name in the data form, or click Field options > Advanced, and then click the field name.

Add multiple regions to one field

Some values span multiple lines or pages, so a single field may need several regions. To add multiple regions to a new field:

Add the field

Use either method above.

Select additional regions

Hold Shift and click or drag additional regions for the same field.

To add regions to an existing field, select the field in the data form, and then click or drag its location on the image. If the value spans multiple words, select them all as a single region. Regions can span multiple pages or sit inside another region. A nested region is highlighted in a darker color. When it’s in focus, it’s highlighted in yellow.

General properties

To change these properties, click Field options > Advanced.

Property	Description
Field name	Unique within the skill. Cannot contain: `. , / : * ? " < > \|`. Maximum length: 90 characters.
Data type	The kind of data the field contains. Affects recognition accuracy. See Data types for options.
Allow multiple items	Whether the field repeats (for example, multiple child names or account numbers).
Required field	If enabled and the field is empty after extraction, the document goes to manual review with an error.
Key field	Marks the value as searchable, so you can use it to look up documents.
Dimension field	Exposes the value as a reporting dimension in Skill Monitor. The value is truncated to 100 characters in the reporting database, but remains as is in the document.

Data types

Data type	Description
Text	May contain Latin and Cyrillic letters, digits, hieroglyphics, and special characters.
Date	A date and time in any format. Accepted separators: dot (`.`), space, hyphen (`-`), backslash (`\`), and forward slash (`/`).
Number	May contain digits, decimal separators, and the percent character (`%`). Accepted decimal separators: dot (`.`), comma (`,`), hyphen (`-`), equals sign (`=`), space. Accepted thousands separators: dot (`.`), comma (`,`), single quotation mark (`'`), space.
Money	A number value with a currency symbol. The symbol can appear before or after the amount.

The lowercase “l” (L), uppercase “I” (i), and digit “1” can look identical. In Number or Money fields, an ambiguous character is recognized as “1” because letters aren’t allowed.

Text appearance

These properties describe the appearance of characters expected in the field.

Setting	Description
Text origin	Whether the field contains only printed characters, only handwritten characters, or both. If you add the field by dragging a rectangle, Vantage infers this value from the characters it finds. If you add the field with Add Field, the value defaults to Printed. For more information, see supported languages for handwritten text recognition.
Eliminate field background	Improves recognition when the field has a frame, boxes for individual characters, or placeholder text. If you enable this option, upload the blank form document that serves as the background template and label the corresponding field on the blank form. The blank form appears in the Document Set, marked with an icon.
Special fonts	Improves recognition accuracy when the field uses a specific font. You can select more than one font. The default is Normal.

Handwritten text recognition is enabled for new Document skills by default. To toggle it, click the skill settings icon to the right of the skill name, open the Languages tab, and select or clear Handwritten in the Text Appearance section.

Supported fonts

Font	Description	Font sample
Fax	A font typically used by fax machines.
Gothic	Texts printed in Gothic type.
Index	A special set of characters that includes only digits written in ZIP-code style.
Matrix printer	Texts printed on a dot-matrix printer.
MICR CMC-7	A special MICR barcode font (CMC-7).
MICR E-13B	Numeric characters printed with magnetic ink. MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) characters appear on a variety of documents, including personal checks.
OCR-A	A monospaced font designed for optical character recognition. Widely used by banks, credit card companies, and similar businesses.
OCR-B	A font designed for optical character recognition.
Receipt	For text of low quality, typically in a monospaced or normal font used on receipts.
Typewriter	Typewritten texts.

Properties by data type

Additional properties depend on the data type.

Text

Value settings:

Setting	Description
Maximum length	The maximum number of characters allowed. If the extracted value exceeds this length, Vantage displays an error. If the process has a manual review stage, the document goes to manual review.
Regular expression	A pattern that narrows the valid character set for the field, which can improve extraction accuracy. For example, you can force every character to be recognized as a digit, match a specific phone number format, or validate that a field contains a numeric weight with units.

Example 1: Phone numbers like 1-(234)-567-8900 or 2 (987) 654 3211.

/^(1|2)(\-|\s)\([\d]{3}\)(\-|\s)[\d]{3}(\-|\s)[\d]{4}$/

Example 2: Weight values like 50lb, 50lbs, 50Lb, 50Lbs, 50 lb, or 50 lbs.

/^[\d]*(\s)?(L|l)b(s)?$/

Regular expressions do not affect text recognition in PDF documents.

Date

Value may include settings:

Setting	Description
Time	Allow a time value. If disabled, time is not extracted.
Day of week	Allow a day of the week in the field. If disabled, a day of the week is not extracted.
Month by name	Allow the month to be spelled out as a word.

Acceptable order of components

Select one or more date formats: Day-Month-Year, Month-Day-Year, or Year-Month-Day. If the detected format doesn’t match any selected format, the document goes to manual review.

Acceptable date

Specify a valid date range as a number of months before and after the day the document was processed. Use integers. A rule checks whether the extracted date falls within the range. Out-of-range dates send the document to manual review.

Number

Value settings specify what kind of number the detected value is (integer or decimal) and what number formats are accepted in the field. Values that don’t meet the requirements send the document to manual review.

Setting	Description
Integers only	The value must be an integer. Any separators in the detected number are treated as thousands separators.
Fractional part may contain more than two digits	Enable when the decimal part is expected to have more than two digits. Accepted decimal separators: dot (`.`), comma (`,`), hyphen (`-`), equals sign (`=`), space.
May have negative values	Allow negative values, denoted by a minus sign or brackets.
May include ’%’ symbol	Allow a percentage character before or after the value.

Number must be within interval

Set a minimum and maximum value (integers or decimals, positive or negative). A rule checks whether the value falls within the range. Out-of-range values send the document to manual review.

Money fields use the same properties as Number, except the percentage character is not allowed.

​Add a Text field

​Add multiple regions to one field

​General properties

​Data types

​Text appearance

​Supported fonts

​Properties by data type

​Text

​Date

​Acceptable order of components

​Acceptable date

​Number

​Number must be within interval

​Related topics

Add a Text field

Add multiple regions to one field

General properties

Data types

Text appearance

Supported fonts

Properties by data type

Text

Date

Acceptable order of components

Acceptable date

Number

Number must be within interval

Related topics