Marking: Barcodes, Text, OMR, Annotations, and Rectangles

The Rubika Marking module can add barcodes or text strings to its output sheets. Several of the most common encoded barcode formats are supported. You can also use the generic Barcode action to place any barcode that uses a font file. The contents of barcodes are typically extracted from Rubika’s Internal Variables and indexes. You specify the internal variables that will compose the barcode string, each with conditional rules that qualify whether the value of the variable is added to the barcode string.

Often an invoice or statement will have a series of small rectangles along its edge. These are known as “Optical Mark Recognition” marks, or OMR marks. OMR is a technology that is commonly used to control inserters that automatically place sheets of paper into envelopes. The patterns of small rectangles convey information about each document to an optical scanner on the inserter. The Rubika Marking module adds OMR rectangles to refer to the pages or sheets of a Report.

The Rubika Marking module can generate and add PDF annotations to the input PDF file. The PDF annotations can be composed of static strings, internal variables, and function results. The content of the annotations can be variable based on the value of internal variables at the time an individual annotation is composed. The annotations are placed at the bottom of specified pages. This allows Rubika to write data to the PDF file without it appearing on any pages. The annotation data can then be used by another program or process.

By specifying coordinates, dimensions and color, the Rubika Marking module enables you to conditionally mask regions of a page using an “opaquing rectangle”. Commonly, you would use a white rectangle to remove old barcodes or OMR marks that might not be suitable for a new inserter.