machine-readable syn. machine processable = exploitable sur machine
form = formulaire, imprimé
Re: Robert-Collins

I believe to say formulaire as if it was something into which you enter data is a misreading.

It's clearly referring to the distinction between human (natural) language and the language used by computers, binary hexadecimal etc.

Machine readable means to me that this form shall be introduced in one machine (scanner?) in order to read its content (with an OCR software?). If my guess apply to the context, my proposal could be seriously taken into account.

On a technical point of view, you say that the context is back-up. I can clearly undestand that getting bitmap picture from this form takes much more room than storing ASCII characters obtained after ruuning the OCR.