Creating Semi-structured Layouts

• Published on May 6, 2026
• 10 minute(s) read

Accessing this feature

Your access to the feature described in this article depends on your license package and pricing plan. To learn which features are available to your organization and how to add more, contact your Hyperscience representative.

After you add a Semi-structured layout to Hyperscience, you will use the Layout Editor to define what information the system should extract from the processed pages that match the specific layout.

Unlike fields in Structured documents, fields in Semi-structured documents do not require bounding boxes because their location on the page may vary.

However, metadata information is required for fields defined in Semi-structured layouts. Similar to Structured fields, metadata includes the names used to label the information to be extracted from the fields, as well as any specific settings to help the system read and process the field value.

Create a Semi-structured layout

1. Go to Library > Layouts.
2. Click Add Layout.
3. Click Semi-structured Layout, and then click Next.
4. In the Layout Name text box, enter a name for your layout.
5. Under Language, click on the drop-down list, and click on the language you expect people to use when entering information in this layout’s documents.
   • If you know that specific fields or table columns will contain text in different languages than the document’s main language, you can select languages specific to those fields or columns in the Layout Editor.
6. Click Create.

By following these steps, you will create a layout with a single variation. You cannot add variations to the layout, as variations can only be added to Structured layouts. To make edits to your layout, you’ll need to go to the Layout Editor.

Navigating the Layout Editor

You can specify the information that should be extracted from submitted pages that match the layout by defining the field metadata in the Layout Editor.

Access the Layout Editor

To access the Layout Editor:

1. Go to Library > Layouts, and click on the name of the layout you want to edit.
2. Click Layout Variations, and then click on the name of the variation.

When in the Layout Editor, you’ll be making changes to the working version of the layout.

Defining field metadata

Add a new field by clicking the Add Field button at the bottom of the "Fields" card. Then, fill out the following metadata for each field:

• Name - labels the field throughout the product and is intended to be human-readable. This name is also provided in the output for submitted pages matched to the layout.
• Data Type - designates the type of data that is expected for the given field. Data types specify the kinds of characters expected and any formatting that should be expected.
  • For Semi-structured documents, you define signature fields with the "Signature" data type.
• Output Name - allows users to provide a programmatic name for each field, in addition to the human-readable display name.
• Transcription Supervision- allows you to specify the field’s transcription handling. Possible values include:
  • Autotranscribe
  • Default
  • Always
  • Consensus
• Identification Supervision – allows you to specify the field’s identification handling. The possible values are:
  • Auto-identify
  • Default
  • Always
• Notes (optional) - setting allows notes to be added to a field’s definition.

Adding new fields to a live layout causes a warning message to appear on the layout’s details page.

Additional settings

There are additional settings and features to improve machine performance:

• Multiline - should be enabled for fields where more than one line of text is expected.
• Required - should be marked when you need to know whether a field exists on the document.

Defining table column metadata

Add a new table by clicking the Add Table button at the bottom of the "Tables" card. To define a nested table, click the Add Child Table button.

To add a new column, click the Add Column button and enter the following metadata:

• Name - labels the table column throughout the product.
• Data type - designates the type of data that is expected for the given column.
• Output Name - allows users to provide a programmatic name for each column, in addition to the human-readable display name.
• Notes (optional) - setting allows notes to be added to a column's definition.

For each table column, a name and a data type must be defined. If either is missing, an error message will be shown.

Adding new table columns to a live layout causes a warning message to appear on the layout’s details page.

Additional settings

• Multiline - should be enabled for any column where more than one line of text is expected.
• Not in - if you know this column will contain text in a language that differs from the one selected during layout-creation, select the Not in option.

Reordering and deleting fields

The order of fields in the layout corresponds to the order in which fields will be shown to users during processing. Fields can be reordered in the Layout Editor by clicking and dragging the handle tool.

You can also delete a field by clicking the trash can icon found on the right side of each row.

Saving and exiting

All working versions auto-save, so there is no need to manually save changes that have been made. To commit your changes to the working version of the layout variation, click Commit Changes at the top of the page.

To leave the Layout Editor without committing your changes, click the X in the upper-right corner.