Modify format options
Several format options become available when you add a format regular expression. These include:
- Use
-
For each format to use, enable or clear the check box. For example, enabling the format definitions one-at-a-time helps you to test each format separately. If you have two similar formats, test them to see which one provides better performance in production. To disable the less effective format, clear the Use option. Do not delete the format because it may be useful at a later date.
- Format Type
- This shows the format type. This can be a regular expression, simple expression, Levenshtein, or trigram format definition.
- Format Expression
- This shows the syntax of the format definition.
- Whole Word
-
This option is available only for regular expression format definitions.
Selecting this option
assigns a lower level of confidence to unwanted alternatives that lie within longer strings of characters. Consider a format designed to search for a 5-digit zip code. Selecting this option assigns a low level of confidence to unwanted alternatives that appear within longer numbers on the document, such as 11-digit telephone numbers.
- Ignore Case
-
If you select this option
, the Format Locator ignores case for this format. If it is not selected, the Format Locator will ignore any alternative that differs in case. For example, a regular expression that searches for
Last Name
with the ignore case option disabled does not returnLast name
as a confident result. - Ignore Blanks
-
If you select this option
, spaces are ignored when a format is run. For example, a Social Security Number may be printed with spaces between the numbers. This option ensures that a result is found.
- Search Exact
-
This option is available only for regular expression format definitions that contain a dictionary.
If this option
is selected, a value is only returned if there is an exact match in the dictionary.
This means that you are able to ensure precise matching. If
January
was misread asJanvary
, the misread date would not be returned. - Ignore Characters
- Type in characters that can be ignored by the format definition search.
- Description
- Type a description of the format definition. Include sample matches so it is clear what is supposed to match here.
- Error Description
- If there are any issues with the format definition, a read-only error is displayed in this column.
You can modify format options by following these steps:
- Open the locator properties.
-
On the
Format Definitions tab, in the
Formats group, clear the
Use
option to disable formats.
For the best results, use this feature when testing your Format Locator to ensure that the individual format definitions work in partnership. Delete unwanted formats when you finish testing your locator.
-
Enable or clear the following options for each format definition as needed.
- Whole Word
- Ignore Case
- Ignore Blanks
- Search Exact
- Whole Word
-
For a format definition, type the characters that the format should ignore into the
Ignore Characters column.
Common examples include hyphens in telephone numbers and commas in monetary values.
- Open a test document and click Test to test your settings.
- Optionally, click Close to close the locator properties window.
- Save the changes to your project.