Flow

The 'Separator Expression' property controls what text or characters are permitted between array elements.

By default, if this property is left blank, the provider allows elements separated by zero or one space character.

You can enter any valid .NET regular expression pattern. For example:

• To allow a comma or semicolon with optional spaces: ,\s*|;\s*
• To allow one or more spaces or tabs: [ \t]+
• To require a line break: \r?\n

Example

If your document contains a list like Apple, Banana, Cherry, set the separator expression to ,\s* to extract each fruit as an array element.

> Note: The separator is applied after any preprocessing defined in the 'Preprocessing Options' property.

The 'Maximum Character Distance' property limits how many characters can appear between array elements for them to be considered part of the same array.

• Set to 0 to disable this constraint (no maximum).
• Increase the value to allow more intervening characters (including whitespace or other separators).

This property is useful for preventing overmatching in documents where unrelated values may appear close together.

> Tip: Use in combination with the 'Separator Expression' property for precise control.

The 'Maximum Geometric Distance' property limits the physical distance (in inches) between array elements, based on their position in the document layout.

• Enter a numeric value (e.g., 0.5) to specify the maximum allowed distance.
• Set to 0 to disable this constraint.

This is especially useful for documents with variable font sizes or when extracting from scanned images, where character counts may not accurately reflect visual spacing.

The 'Preprocessing Options' property allows you to configure how the document text is normalized before extraction.

Preprocessing can:

• Convert line breaks within paragraphs to spaces.
• Replace large whitespace gaps with tab characters.
• Remove or replace control characters (spaces, newlines, etc.).

Example

If your document contains values that span multiple lines, enable paragraph marking to merge wrapped lines into a single flow, making extraction more reliable.

> Note: Preprocessing is applied before the separator expression and distance constraints are evaluated.

For more details, see the documentation for Text Preprocessor.

The 'Maximum Size Variation' property controls how much the font size can differ between adjacent array elements for them to be grouped together by the Layout Provider.

• The value is expressed as a percentage (e.g., 0.2 for 20%) and is calculated as the difference between the two font sizes, divided by the smaller of the two.
• A value of 1.0 (the default) disables this constraint, allowing any amount of font size variation.
• Lower values enforce stricter matching, which is useful for documents where array elements are expected to have consistent formatting.
• Increase the value to allow for more variation, which can be helpful for documents with mixed font sizes or inconsistent OCR results.

Example

• If set to 0.2, two elements with font sizes of 10pt and 12pt (a 20% difference) will be grouped, but 10pt and 15pt (a 50% difference) will not.

Usage Notes

• Use a lower value to prevent unrelated elements with different font sizes from being grouped together.
• Use the default value (1.0) to ignore font size differences and group all elements regardless of formatting.