Linking to an ASCII Database (text file) in Codesoft

An ASCII delimited file is a text file separate fields of information. This separator (delimiter) can be a comma, a column, or a tab. A line feed or carriage return separates each record in the file. In order to create an ASCII delimited file, a text editor, such as NotePad can be used. The text file will end in .csv (comma separated values) or txt (text file).

A comma-delimited file may look like the following shipping.txt file:

John Smith,123 Main St,Springfield,DC,12345

Richard Daly,456 Elm St,Chicago,IL,60156

Rudy Guiliani,789 Fifth Ave,New York,NY,01078

There are five fields in this file: Name, Address, City, State, Zip. There are 3 records. Spaces are not necessary after a comma delimiter. In fact, if you put spaces after the comma, the next field will have a space before the data. Below is how the label will look once the file is imported into Codesoft:

Importing the data from a text file into CodeSoft:

1.  Open Codesoft

2.  Click on Datasources (menu bar), Database (drip down menu) then Open ASCII Table

3.  The ASCII Database screen opens. In the Data File section, click on the elipses button on the right (button with three dots), and browse to your text file and click Open.

4.  Next you are going to create a Describer file. Once created, you can use it again. This file will tell Codesoft how many fields there are and how they are separated.

5.  Click on the Edit button below the describer field (step 1 in picture below). The describer window opens. Enter the number of fields your text or csv file has (2). In the example below, I manually changed the Names of each field for easy recognition.

6.  If your file is comma delimited (the default), just click OK (4 in picture). But if your file is Tab delimited, click on Options (3 in picture above) and delete the comma from the Field Separator box and click on the Tab button, then click OK – see picture below.

7.  Now that Codesoft know what file, where the file is, how many fields it has and how it is delimited, click OK until you are back out to the label design screen.

8.  The fields will appear under Database on the Data Sources panel along the right

9.  Click and Drap the fields onto the label.

10. When you go to print, note that Current Label is the default, only the current label will print. Click on the More button on the Print Screen’s lower right and the full Print Screen will appear. You can now select All Records or enter individual Records or ranges.

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