Supported Delimitation Types

The mixed quote and comma delimiter works with comma-delimited and quote-and-comma-delimited files. In a standard delimited text file, numeric fields are usually delimited by commas, and character string fields are delimited by double quotation marks and commas. Assuming that the first field of each line is a numeric field, the data that is saved to the file resembles the following.

Because there are four lines in the file, four different items with three different fields of data are printed.

In a quote and comma delimited text file, the individual fields are separated by both quotation marks and commas. A quote and comma delimited file resembles the following.

Because there are four lines in the file, four different items are printed. Note that each line of the file contains three fields of data for each record. Each field has quotation marks around it and is separated from the others by a comma.

For example, the first record contains an identification number of 0543166. This number would most likely be printed as a barcode. The text fields "Oranges" and "Perishable" may also appear on the same printed item. Almost all database, spreadsheet, and word processing software can create data files in this format.

In a comma-delimited text file, the individual fields are separated by commas. A comma-delimited file resembles the following.

Because there are four lines in the file, four different items with three different fields of data are printed.

There is a space in the second field of the second line between the word "Flower" and the word "Pots". Comma delimitation recognizes spaces as long as they are embedded between the data characters in a field.

Leading and trailing spaces are removed by default, but if you want to print these spaces, you can configure BarTender to do so by clicking to clear the Trim Spaces from each field check box on the Data Filtering page of the Database Setup wizard.

Tab delimitation uses a tab character to separate between fields. A tab delimited file resembles the following.

Because there are four lines in the file, four different items with three different fields of data are printed.

You can use any single-character or multiple-character delimiter that you want to separate information on a single line. For example, a custom delimiter file that uses a colon for the field delimiter resembles the following.

Because there are four lines in the file, four different items with three different fields of data are printed.

You can use a custom regular expression as a delimiter to separate data fields on a line. You might use this option when the delimiters in your file vary (for example, some delimiters might have trailing spaces, or you might have more than one kind of delimiter in the file). Use the custom regular expression to match the various delimiters so that they are all treated the same way.

The following table includes examples of custom regular expression delimiters.