Template Properties
Visual templates in auto mode allow you to adjust two levels of hierarchy. Template Properties are applied to the entire template, Field Properties are applied to individual fields within the template. When you create a template the template properties and field properties are setup automatically based on the context of the creation. You adjust these properties through the visual controls to tune the template to your exact data extraction objectives.
Template Fly Menu
The template properties define attributes of the template itself, not the individual fields (or traps in the terminology of other software). Certain global controls not shown in the template properties panes are available when you right click on the template tab. Adjustments you can make from the template tab fly menu include:
Convert a top level template to a detail template and vice versa, e.g. "Make it a top level template" or "Make it a detailed template"
Reset the template or flush the template. Flushing the template clears the properties without deleting the template
Delete the template
This same fly menu can be used to create new templates as well as the find (search) or copy (copy and paste). Copy can be useful in defining masks.
Template Properties Pane
All of the other template property controls are located in the template properties pane.
Template Property Options
Template name The default names are Ln for top level templates and Dn for detailed templates. You may choose any name for each template. The name does not have any impact on the action of the template.
Field positions determines how the fields (or traps) are positioned horizontally across the input line. Fixed, Attached to headers, delimited, and manually defined (by regular expression) are the options.
Field Delimiter determines how the fields are separated from one another. One or more spaces, two or more spaces, and Mask (regular expression) are the options. If you choose mask, a Field delimiter mask option appears where you can type (or copy and paste) your regular expression.
Vertical Range allows you to set a vertical beginning and ending point for the template. When this box is checked "Starting from" and "Ending at" options will appear.
In the example below, the same labels (“Dealer” and “Payment Type Count”) are used in different contexts. This prevents you by simply highlighting the label using default settings. Instead, you need to ignore the use of these labels at the top of the document by setting a Stating from expression for the Vertical Range.
Top Tag/Bottom Tag allow you to define a regular expression for the beginning and/or ending of the application of the template to the input document. These set the beginning and ending bookends for the data extraction action of the template.
Exclude mask an exclude mask allow lines to be excluded from the action of the template based on a regular expression.
Optional Is the template optional? Only check this box if you have multiple templates and not all of them will be used for every input document.
Allow adding empty lines
Use other templates data
Multi column allows you to read the input document as a series of columns instead of full width lines. Checking this option adds an option for Vertical Splits where you type the number of column separators. Note that the number of column separators or vertical splits is not the same as the number of columns. You will also define the beginning and ending of a page. The page break defines the wrapping point for the column, that is, at the bottom of the page, the column on the left wraps to the top of the page in the next column to the right.
Disabled allows you to keep a template and all it's properties but not use it at all in the extraction process. This option is also useful for testing or trouble shooting complex projects.