In scanning-enabled categorical looks you are restricted in the way that you can define the mark fields. In UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper, mark fields are the areas on a questionnaire that are used to indicate respondents’ answers to categorical and grid questions, and to the categorical and grid parts of compound questions. On some paper questionnaires, respondents record their answers to categorical questions by circling the category texts or numbers. On these questionnaires, the category texts or numbers are the mark fields. On other paper questionnaires, the mark fields are symbols, such as boxes or circles, which respondents check. Although you can format categorical questions either way in UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper, when you format questionnaires for use with UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add-on, you must use symbols for the mark fields.

ReadSoft FORMS can accept both boxes and circles as mark fields, although they must have a width or diameter of at least 1.5 millimeters. ReadSoft recommends a square with a width of 3 millimeters, or 1/8 inches, for optimal performance. Apply the mr Category Answer character style to the symbol. Immediately to the right of the mark field insert a one-character placeholder and apply the mr Category Scanning ID character style to it. When you apply the Look to a question, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper replaces the placeholder with information that identifies the mark field to the scanning software. UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper automatically formats this information as hidden text so that it is not visible in the questionnaire.

You control the size of the mark field symbols using the font size. However, when the font size is larger than about 26 points, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add-on cannot always interpret the size and shape correctly. It may interpret all of these symbols as squares whose width equals the height regardless of the actual shape. Therefore, if you need to use very large symbols, it is advisable to use squares.

Using a combination of a border around the outside of a Look and category replication that adds a border every two or three lines can sometimes interfere with the field definitions in ReadSoft FORMS. It is therefore advisable to avoid using this combination of features.

In UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper, you can use conditional display character styles to create a Look that displays one mark field for single response questions and a different mark field for multiple response questions. However, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add-on cannot identify these mark fields correctly. So do not use conditional display character styles in this way in Looks that you use with UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add-on. If you want to use different symbols for the mark fields for single response and multiple response questions, set up separate scanning-enabled Looks for single-response and multiple-response questions and apply them to the appropriate questions.