Fixed Width Fields

A text file with fixed-width fields is one in which each field in a record begins at a fixed number of character positions from the beginning of the record. Because of this, there is no need to separate fields from each other with any delimiting characters.

The following is an example of records with fixed-width fields. The first field in each record has eight character positions, the second has ten, and the third has ten. Notice that in the second record, no delimiting character separates "Cantaloupe" from "Perishable". None is needed, because your document can be set up to always treat the 19^th character as the beginning of the third field.

Related Topics

• Mixed Quote and Comma Delimitation
• Quote and Comma Delimitation
• Comma Delimitation
• Tab Delimitation
• User Defined Delimitation

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