Welcome > Set up Validation > Validation forms > Customized validation forms > Add a masked area

Add a masked area

The validation form enables you to define areas of a document that are masked out so you can hide information on a document from a user. When the document is displayed in Validation or Test Validation, the Document Viewer shows the defined areas masked in either black or white, so they are not readable by the user. This is useful when you are using multiple validation steps and, want to hide a social security number from users that validate address data only.

Important For security reasons, the best practice is to use masked areas only for documents in a client/server environment and in combination with SecurityBoost. You have to ensure that the images are not available on the local machine as a masked area is not placed physically on the document, but in memory for Validation or Test Validation.
Important If you are using Thin Client Validation, images are loaded with the mask already in place, ensuring that there is no local copy of an image without a mask.

You can add a masked area to your validation form by following these steps:

  1. Select a test document from the Documents window.
  2. In the Project Tree, locate the class with the validation form to update.
  3. On the Design tab, in the Validation Forms group, click Customize.

    If you configured the project for more than one Validation step, select Step <n> from the submenu, where <n> is the number of the step whose validation form you are customizing.

    The Validation Form Layout window displays the form in a standard layout if you are defining the form for the first time, or your customized form.

  4. Open the General Properties window for the validation form by clicking Properties General Properties icon from the toolbar.
  5. Draw a zone on the displayed document in the viewer using the mouse to create a masked area.

    The position and size of the zone is automatically added to the list of available zones for the Masked Areas - Zones option.

  6. By default the color for the masked area is black. To change the color expand the Masking option and select white.
  7. To change the size or position of a masked area select the area within the Document Viewer and drag the handles of the displayed rectangle.