Selective document scanning method and apparatus

A method for selectively scanning a document under control of a scanning device operably associated with a memory, the method comprising the steps of:

• operating the scanning device during a single scanning operation to:
• (i) automatically sense individual marker areas at predetermined locations on an instruction region of a control sheet that also includes a document support region, each marker area located near an associated human intelligible representation of a scanning function control parameter,
• (ii) respond only to the presence of a marking at one or more of said sensed marker areas and to correlate the sensed presence of a said marking with data stored in said memory corresponding to the scanning function control parameter associated with the marker area having the sensed marking;
• and
• (iii) performing a scanning operation of a document located on the document support region to encode scanned data contents thereof in accordance with the scanning function control parameter associated with each respective marker area of the instruction region at which a sensed marking is present and to store the encoded data in said memory;
• wherein one of said scanning function control parameters is scan operability during said scanning operation, and a plurality of marker areas on the instruction region are associated with human intelligible representations of the respective sub-areas of said support region occupying less than the total area of the document support region, whereby scan encoding during said scanning operation is determined by sensing markings associated with at least a selected one of said sub-areas;
• and
• performing at least a further operation on encoded scan data only from each sub-area.

A method for selectively scanning a document under control of a scanning device operably associated with a memory, the method comprising the steps of:

• operating the scanning device during a single scanning operation to
• (i) automatically sense individual marker areas at predetermined locations in on a control sheet, each marker area located near an associated human intelligible representation of a control parameter, first ones of said marker areas associated with scan function control parameters and other ones of said marker areas associated with operation control parameters;
• (ii) respond to the presence of a marking at one or more of said sensed marker areas and to correlate the sensed presence of a said marking with data stored in said memory corresponding to the control parameter associated with the marker area having the sensed marking;
• and
• (iii) performing a scanning operation of one or more document areas associated with said control sheet to encode scanned data content thereof in accordance with the scanning function control parameter associated with each respective first marker area having a sensed marking;
• and
• in accordance with the operation control parameter associated with each respective other marker area having a sensed marking, performing at least a further operation on scan encoded data only from one or more of said document areas occupying less than the total document area scannable during said scanning operation.

A method for selectively scanning a document under control of a scanning device operably associated with a memory, the method comprising the steps of:

• operating the scanning device during a single scanning operation to
• (i) automatically sense first and second individual marker areas at predetermined locations in a region on a control sheet, each first marker area located near an associated human intelligible representation of a scanning function control parameter, each second marker area located near an associated human intelligible representation of an operation control parameter different from said scanning function control parameter;
• (ii) respond only to the presence of a marking at one or more of said sensed first marker areas and to correlate the sensed presence of a said marking with data stored in said memory corresponding to the scanning function control parameter associated with the first marker area having the sensed marking;
• and
• (iii) performing a scanning operation over a document area associated with said control sheet to encode scanned data content thereof in accordance with the scanning function control parameter associated with the or each respective first marker area having a sensed marking;
• and
• performing at least a further operation independently of said scanning function control parameters on encoded data of only one or more predefined document sub-areas, each sub-area having an area less than said document area, said at least one further operation performed in accordance with an operation control parameter associated with one or more second marker areas having a sensed marking.

A system including a scanning device and an operatively associated memory, the system comprising:

• a document having a portion to be encoded;
• a control sheet including an instruction region and a support region, said instruction region including a plurality of marker areas at predetermined locations of the instruction region, each marker area located near an associated human intelligible representation of a scanning device functional parameter, and a plurality of said marker areas on the instruction region are associated with human intelligible representations of control parameters including marker areas associated with first and second scan function control parameters and further marker areas associated with operation control parameters;
• said scanning device operable during a single pass scanning operation over said control sheet to automatically sense and respond to the presence of markings at a plurality of said marker areas in the instruction region of the control sheet by correlating the sensed presence of a said marking with data stored in said memory corresponding to the control parameter associated with the marker area at which the sensed marking is located, and to perform a scanning operation in the document support region of the control sheet;
• wherein first scanning function control parameters associated with first marker areas define one or more discrete sub-areas of the support region;
• said scanning device operable during said scanning operation of the document support region to generate and store in said memory scanned data signals resulting from scanning data located in the support region, the scanning device operable to encode the scanned data signals in accordance with second scanning function control parameters associated with second ones of said marker areas associated with scan function control parameters at which the presence of a marking is sensed during scanning of said instruction region;
• and
• wherein said system is operable to perform at least one operation under control of an operation control parameter associated with a said further marker area having a sensed marking using stored encoded scan data from one or more discrete sub-areas in the document support region defined by a second scan function control parameter.