VISUAL QUICKPRO GUIDE FileMaker Pro 7 Advanced FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH [Electronic resources]

Cynthia L. Baron, Daniel Peck

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Cleaning Up Text Data Before Importing

Sometimes the data you want to import from a text file has a consistent quirk that is sure to cause problems. Most people work with fairly recent software versions, but in any organization you'll find isolated holdouts clinging to programs so antiquated that their software doesn't use standard delimiter characters (commas or tabs). Problems also occur with text files that contain extra return characters: The extra return produces a blank record, which can throw off the database import structure.

If you have a text file that contains extra returns or other single-character anomalies, there is a relatively painless method for removing them in a word processing program like Microsoft Word, before you import the file. Be sure to work on a copy of your text file, not the original, so that you can recover the original if you make a mistake. Not all of these changes are easy to undo.

To delete formatting characters in Word

1 .

Open the text file in Word.

2 .

Choose Tools > Options in Windows or Word > Preferences (Command+,) on the Macintosh.

3 .When the Options or Preferences dialog box appears, the View tab/preference will be selected. Under "Nonprinting characters," click the check boxes next to "Tab characters" and "Paragraph marks" (Figure 14.1). (In Word 2000, the section you need in the View tab is called "Formatting marks.") Click OK.

Figure 14.1. To see the formatting in a Microsoft Word text file, use Tools > Options or Word > Preferences to make the nonprinting characters visible.

Tab and return characters that are usually hidden will now appear in the text file. If you see extra returns that need removing (Figure 14.2), choose Edit > Replace.

Figure 14.2. These extra return characters need to be stripped out of the file before you import it.

[View full size image]

4 .In the Find and Replace dialog box, click the More button (Figure 14.3) to display more search options.

Figure 14.3. Clicking the More arrow button opens the Search and Find/Replace advanced sections.

5 .In the Find section, click Special and select Paragraph Mark from the drop-down menu (Figure 14.4). Do this a second time, so that you have two paragraph marks in the "Find what" box.

Figure 14.4. Formatting characters are available in the Special drop-down menu.

6 .

Tab to the "Replace with" box, click Special and select Paragraph Mark from the drop-down menu.

7 .Click Replace All (Figure 14.5).

Figure 14.5. Replace All examines the entire document and replaces every double return with a single return.

Word searches for two consecutive returns and deletes one of them. Repeat the Replace All command until Word indicates that no replacements were made, then save the file.

8 .

You can now import the file into FileMaker without creating extra blank records.