Most paper questionnaires are used to record handwritten responses, which are challenging to interpret. Scanning software can usually interpret the marks that respondents and interviewers make on the paper to select their response from a printed list of responses. However, interpreting handwritten responses to open-ended and numeric questions is more complicated. UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add‑on handles these two different types of responses in different ways.

These ask respondents to respond in their own words. Therefore, the number of words in the response is unknown. The success of the scanning software in interpreting this type of data is likely to be limited unless the questionnaire contains a separate box for each possible character. This, however, uses a large amount of paper and can inhibit respondents and slow down interviewers. For this reason UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add‑on gives you a choice of defining the responses in ReadSoft FORMS as character fields, which ReadSoft FORMS attempts to recognize and interpret, or as image fields, which ReadSoft FORMS makes no attempt to interpret. For both options, ReadSoft FORMS captures an image of each open-ended response, which the operator can view in ReadSoft FORMS to transcribe the text or code it into categories or to check that it has been interpreted correctly. UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add‑on Transfer can also export image files of each response. This means that you also have the option to transcribe or code the responses (or check them if they were interpreted, transcribed, or coded in ReadSoft FORMS) in another product.

These generally ask the respondent to provide a numeric response of not more than a few digits. For example, questions that ask respondents how many times they have visited the museum in the last 12 months, or to enter their approximate annual income. Because respondents are generally provided with separate boxes to enter each digit, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add‑on sets up ReadSoft FORMS to interpret the characters and store the interpreted data as a numeric value. You can choose whether ReadSoft FORMS prompts you to confirm the interpretation of each response. UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Paper/Scan Add‑on Transfer can optionally export an image of each response so that the interpreted responses can be checked in another product.