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Question

Can I use a blank form as a watermark on documents?

Laserfiche Version 10
Updated June 25, 2018
asked on June 20, 2018

QUESTION:  Can I use a blank form as a watermark on documents?

REASON:  Property Assessment and Tax Notices are calculated and programmed to print out from our financial software onto a paper form that we physically place into our printers.  These do not always print out straight or with the lines in the right place.  I think we would get a better product if we could print these out using a watermark that is an image... the image that used to be the printed blank form.

Is this possible?  I could only see references to "text" watermarks in the LF Admin Guide.

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Replies

replied on June 20, 2018

Where does the data come from? Would it be easier to recreate the preprinted form in Word or Acrobat and then insert the data into form fields using Workflow? Then you could print the completed document.

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replied on June 21, 2018

The data comes from other software and is programmed to print out in the right spaces to fit into the boxes on the blank forms.

Okay, so I take it the answer is an image covering the whole document cannot be used as a watermark?  Too bad!  

Note:  The biggest reason I wanted to do this is to make the images work better in Quick Fields.  This is what happens:

  • The blank forms are printed by the printers and delivered to us.
  • On Tax Notice day, the tax run is generated and sent to the printer.
  • The blank forms are placed into the target printer and the clerk tells the print job to start.
    • The printouts are usually pretty good, but the data does not always stay within the right boxes.
  • After the paper copies have been all verified as accurate, they are scanned into Laserfiche in batches of anywhere from 50-100 pages.
    • The people scanning do not always remember to make sure they scan in straight, keeping everything lined up straight.
  • I then use Quick Fields to name, template and file these documents.
    • I run into problems if the documents did not stay straight, or the scanner did not keep them lined up the same.
    • The lines of data are tight and I have to keep the zone OCR areas from running into each other.
    • It takes me about a month of focus almost completely on this task to get them all named and templated into LF accurately!  
  • If I could eliminate some of the variables from printing and scanning that cause the data to not always be in exactly the area I programmed QF for, it would help get this job done faster.
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replied on June 21, 2018 • Show version history

You cannot use an image as a watermark with the built in watermark functionality, but you could use and SDK script to draw on the document image.

However, like Devin was saying, it almost sounds like you could create a template form and plug in the data that way, but that assumes you can get data instead of just an image from the second step.

If what you're saying is that you'll just have an image with the data only before printing that could be overlayed onto the form, then you could definitely use an SDK script to draw it on top of your blank form images.

I think the big questions are:

  1. What generates the information and sends it to the printer?
  2. In what ways can that process be modified? (i.e., can it only generate an image, or could it possibly generate an XML file instead?)
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replied on June 21, 2018 • Show version history

We likewise archive tax statements. We're able to get a PDF straight out of the tax system that is the final document. It's basically just a report. Then we import that into Laserfiche. Since we have the extracted text we can use Workflow to process without relying on Quick Fields.

When you originally set up the printed form, there had to be some kind of customization so that you could get the fields placed in the right spot. Can you use that same functionality to just build the rest of the form into the report? Then you could print to PDF and to the printer. No preprinted form required.

Another option...Instead of trying to extract all of the fields from the document, you should only need one unique ID. If you can get the tax ID/account number then you should be able to build a database lookup that will pull the rest of the metadata.

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replied on June 25, 2018 • Show version history

Yes, maybe I need to be thinking bigger picture here.  I was originally told that our financial software and Laserfiche could be connected so that metadata can be transferred.  I think I need to make a recommendation to our CFO that we get that connection set up so that the tax notice data can go directly to LF.  

I also like the idea of having the tax notices printed directly to a pdf, probably a form with fields, and then printed (hard copy for the property owner and Snapshot'd to LF with the form fields intact)  I will have to see if we can make that change, as well.  One or both of these options should make this process much more efficient!

Thanks to all who responded!

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