US Patent 7640203 Accessing data from a financial prospectus

A first portion of data is selected. The first portion of data is capable of being converted from a human-readable format to an electronically readable format. The first portion of data is capable of being stored in an optical bar code. A printed financial prospectus includes the first portion of data in the human-readable format. The first portion of data is stored on the optical bar code. The optical bar code is incorporated into the printed financial prospectus. The first portion of data is read from the optical bar code using a bar code scanner without removing the optical bar code from the printed financial prospectus.