All About OMR Sheets

Optical Mark Recognition or OMR sheets have a special design and structure than normal sheets that have elliptical bubbles or circles as answer options. In such sheets you will find index points on its four corners. These points are what make it possible for the OMR sheet reader software to read the dark marks made on the bubbles by the candidates.

OMR sheets are available in different forms. Some of them include the following:

MCQ Examination
Feedback Form
Admission Form
Recruitment
Application Form
Survey Form
Training and Assessment
Registration Form
Ballot Paper for Polling
Attendance Sheets
Questionnaire Sheet
HR Projects Outsourcing
Inventory Cards
Mark Sheet
Award Sheet
Process Control Sheets

OMR Sheet / OMR Answer Sheet

OMR answer sheets are usually used for educational institutions for conducting multiple choice questions based exams, mostly for entrance or scholarship.

Such sheets are read by the OMR answer sheet checker software, which is the first module of the OMR software.

OMR Form / OMR Application Form

The main purpose of OMR forms is to collect data or information and is commonly used by research companies (surveys), educational institutions (application and admission forms), recruitment firms, etc.

The OMR form reader software, second module of the OMR software, is used for reading these forms. The main reason for using this is that it makes data collection easy, time saving and efficient.

OMR Form + OMR Answer Sheet (Hybrid)

Hybrid sheets serve as OMR forms as well as answers sheets, where there are fields for collecting information and fields for answers and other related to exams.

These are used for scholarship or entrance examinations where the identity of the students is not known to the examination body.

These are also used in government examinations where the identity of the students or candidates has to be cross-checked.

As the sheet possesses the elements of both answer sheet and form, it required both the modules (OMR answer sheet checker and OMR form reader software) for reading the sheets.

OMR Sheet Design

The Addmen OMR software gives you the opportunity to design the OMR sheets on your own with the help of the OMR sheet design software. This feature comes with the reader software. Here are some of the benefits of using the OMR sheet designer:

You can create a variety of OMR sheets with this software.
The designing process is extremely easy. You do not need any special skills for designing different types of OMR sheets on your own.
You can create OMR sheets of any size. A total of 300 questions (with 5 options) can be accommodated in an A4 size paper.
You can also create OMR sheet designs that can be accommodated in half A4 size paper if that is your requirement.
Duplex OMR sheets, i.e., two-sided OMR sheets can also be designed, printed and processed using the OMR software.
The best part of this designing software is that it calibrates the sheets automatically during the designing process. No extra time is required to process the sheets manually.
It is also possible to calibrate pre-printed sheets which were designed for the old OMR scanning machine.

Instructions for OMR Sheet Printing

Earlier, the OMR sheets were to be printed in two-colors. Also, thick papers had to be used for printing the sheets which had to be bought from special vendors. However, these things are not relevant today if you are using the Addmen OMR software. Here are some of the important things that you need to know about printing the OMR sheets.

Black and white OMR sheets can be used today. Colored OMR sheets can also be used if required. The accuracy of the OMR results are not affected by the color of the sheets.
To print the sheets, the designed OMR sheet has to be exported into Corel Draw. Here, you can customize the sheet by adding the name, logo and such other details of your institute.
If you do not have Corel Draw, you can use PDF to print the OMR sheets.

OMR Sheet Printing Paper

There is no longer the need to use thick paper for printing these sheets. You can use the regular 70 GSM A4 sized paper. Thick papers should be used only when the chance of damaging the sheets are high.
The results would be accurate even if the sheets are thin or thick. The OMR software reads the scanned copies of the OMR sheets.
If you chose offset printing to print the OMR sheets, you should use 18"x23” size paper.

Laser or Inkjet OMR Sheet Printer >

You can use a laser or digital copier printer for printing OMR sheets. Rezographs also work well.
The setting of the printer should be changed from Letter to A4 before printing.
It is important to make sure that the inkjet printer does not blot or smudge while printing.

OMR Sheet Printing on Offset >

Offset printing can be used for printing OMR sheets if a large number of sheets have to be printed.
It is better to use Plates rather than Master or Tracing Sheet.
Plates can be created using Corel Draw.
Make sure that all the sheets are of the same size while cutting them (after printing).

OMR Sheet Printing using Photocopy >

A good quality photocopier can be used for taking copies of the OMR sheets.
The size of the photocopy should be the same as the original OMR sheet design.
The index points on the photocopy should be dark in color. Ensure that there are no dust lines on the index points or on the bubbles. This can hamper accurate reading.

General Precautions for OMR Printing

Here are a few things that you should take care while printing the OMR sheets:

The size of the sheet format should not be changed or altered before printing.
The thickness of the bubbles should not be increased as too thick bubbles can hinder the reading process.
The bubbles should not be shifted from their original place.
The location of the index points should remain the same. Also, do not remove them.
Ensure that the index points are printed properly. It should be dark black in color.
Nothing should be printed near the index points.
The size of the text inside the bubbles should be kept to the minimum.
Refrain from using misprinted or misaligned sheets. Same goes for dirty sheets.
If you want to use thin marks or tick marks as the marking pattern for the OMR sheets, it is better to print the sheets in color.

OMR Sheet Printing of Coloured OMR Sheets

It is mandatory to use two colors if you want to print colored OMR sheets.
One of the two colors should be black. The other color can be pink, yellow or orange.
It is best not to use colors with green and blue tones.
Colored OMR sheets should be printed if you need to add text inside the bubbles. This will help the software to detect the dark marks made by candidates easily.
One has to make sure that the colored and black index points overlap each other exactly and there is no relative displacement. In other words, there should be zero-zero registration.

OMR Sheet Printing of Barcode/ OCR Serial No./ Stamped Serial No.

Digitally printed numbers can be read by the OMR software. Same goes in case of barcodes printed on the sheets.
The OMR software cannot read stamped numbers. If using stamps, make sure there are no stray ink marks.
The font size of the barcode should not be more than 32 to 36. Also, it should only be printed in black.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) text should be printed in 16-18 font size. It should be black in color.
You can download the OCR and barcode fonts from www.admengroup.com/support.htm

Instructions for OMR Sheet Scanning

We present to you some important things that you should know while scanning the OMR sheets.

You can use any type of scanner for scanning the OMR sheets. An ADF scanner and even a flatbed scanner can be used.
The reading and evaluation processes are done by the Addmen OMR software. This software can read even skewed, rotated or distorted sheets accurately. So, there are not many restrictions when it comes to scanning the sheets.
Make sure that there is enough space around the index points so that they are scanned properly.
The sheets should be kept in the scanner pockets carefully and in alignment to avoid tangling or tilting of the sheets.
The sheets should be scanned as Picture or Image and not as Document.
The sheets should be saved as TIFF or BMP files. Avoid saving as DOC/JPEG/PDF files.
You should scan the OMR sheets at a DPI between 100 and 200. A higher DPI is needed only while scanning sheets with photographs (100-150 DPI), with OCR or barcode (150-200 DPI) or thin tick marks (150-200 DPI). In these cases, you must scan in color or grayscale modes.

Scanning of B/w Sheets

It is always best to scan as black and white (1-Bit) image.
A scanned A4 size sheet takes a file size of 40-50 KB for TIFF and 100-130 KB for BMP (approximately).
Do not scan as black and white or color photo for minimum file size.
Do not scan in Photo mode for minimum file size. In case you scan the sheets in grayscale or color mode, the size of the file would be large.

Scanning of Coloured Sheets

Colored sheets as well as those with images should be scanned in color (RGB) mode.
These sheets should not be scanned in black and white (1-Bit) to receive a clear image.

Download and read
OMR Printing-Scanning Guide

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