ADV-FORMS
You have reached the ADV-FORMS dataset... We present ADV-FORMS, an openly accessible dataset of historical, form-based documents with layout annotations and transcriptions of handwritten and printed text. The collection comprises 1,200 questionnaires from the early 1930s spa
You have reached the ADV-FORMS dataset…
We present ADV-FORMS, an openly accessible dataset of historical, form-based documents with layout annotations and transcriptions of handwritten and printed text. The collection comprises 1,200 questionnaires from the early 1930s spanning multiple layout templates, completed with handwritten, typewritten, and stamped entries, alongside non-textual elements such as underlines, drawings, and selection marks. The handwriting includes both German Kurrent and Latin scripts. ADV-FORMS provides manual annotations with bounding boxes for 17 recurring, visually distinct layout categories, as well as manual transcriptions of the handwritten content and all typewritten or stamped text.
Overview
The repository contains the following elements:
- ADV-FORMS_images.zip: 1200 scanned questionnaires in JPG format.
- ADV-FORMS_ls.json: annotations and transcriptions for each image in a single JSON file following the Label Studio schema.
- split.zip: suggested split for machine learning applications into training, validation, and test sets (identical to the split used in the ICDAR 2026 paper).
- ADV-FORMS_annotation_guidelines.pdf: guidelines used during dataset assembly; can be used to understand the layout categories.
JSON-Schema Documentation
Top-level structure
Each top-level item represents a single image task and includes:
- data: image metadata, including the image path.
- annotations: a list of annotation records.
- created_at: task creation timestamp.
- updated_at: task update timestamp.
- total_annotations: number of annotation records.
Example
{
"data":
"image": "ADV-FORMS_images/q003_003_1881_R.jpg"
,
"annotations": [
"id": 86,
"completed_by": 3,
"result": [ ... ]
],
"created_at": "2026-06-23T07:45:00Z",
"updated_at": "2026-06-23T07:45:00Z",
"total_annotations": 1
}annotations
Each annotations entry contains a result array with multiple Label Studio result items. In this dataset, the two primary item types are rectanglelabels and textarea, which typically appear together for the same labeled region.
rectanglelabels
rectanglelabels results define labeled bounding boxes on the image.
A typical rectanglelabels item looks like:
{
"id": "2726ba22-eec2-4121-bcda-8b592b6d7cda",
"type": "rectanglelabels",
"from_name": "label",
"to_name": "image",
"value":
"x": 47.67,
"y": 3.20,
"width": 7.37,
"height": 5.95,
"rotation": 0,
"rectanglelabels": ["location_ID_part1"]
}Important value fields:
- <
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Files are hosted on the source repository. Click download to access the full dataset.