You can use FlexMail to link to data in a text file. The Text Import Wizard examines the text file that you are linking to and helps you ensure that the data is linked in the way that you want.

There are two commonly used text file formats. Both are supported in FlexMail:

• Delimited text files (.txt), in which the TAB character (ASCII character code 009) usually separates each field of text.

• Comma-separated values (CSV) text files (.csv), in which the comma character (,) usually separates each field of text.

To link a text file:

1. On the Datasources tab, in the Link External Data group, click Text.

2. In the Link Data dialog box, in the File name box, specify the name of the Text source file.

3. Click Open.

4. In the first step of the Link Text file wizard, you specify the text file format:

   • Original data type. If items in the text file are separated by tabs, colons, semicolons, spaces, or other characters, select Delimited. If all of the items in each column are the same length, select Fixed width.

   • Character set. Select the character set that is used in the text file. In most cases, you can leave this setting at its default.

   The Preview of file box displays the text as it will appear when it is separated into columns on the worksheet.

5. In the second step of the wizard, you specify the field delimiters for character delimited files or the field breaks for fixed length text files.

   For character delimited files:

   • Delimiters. Select the character that separates values in your text file. If the character is not listed, select the Other check box, and then type the character in the box that contains the cursor. These options are not available if your data type is Fixed width.

   • Text qualifier. Select the character that encloses values in your text file. When FlexMail encounters the text qualifier character, all of the text that follows that character and precedes the next occurrence of that character is imported as one value, even if the text contains a delimiter character. For example, if the delimiter is a comma (,) and the text qualifier is a quotation mark ("), "Dallas, Texas" is imported into one cell as Dallas, Texas. If no character or the apostrophe (') is specified as the text qualifier, "Dallas, Texas" is imported into two adjacent cells as "Dallas and Texas".

     If the delimiter character occurs between text qualifiers, Excel omits the qualifiers in the imported value. If no delimiter character occurs between text qualifiers, Excel includes the qualifier character in the imported value. Hence, "Dallas Texas" (using the quotation mark text qualifier) is imported into one cell as "Dallas Texas".

     Decimal symbol. Specify the type of decimal and thousands separators that are used in the text file.

   • Review the text in the Data preview box to verify that the text will be separated into columns on the worksheet as you want it.

   For fixed lenght files:

   • Set field widths in the Data previewsection. Click the preview window to set a column break, which is represented by a vertical line. Double-click a column break to remove it, or drag a column break to move it.

6. In the last step of the Link Text File wizard, you may specify the data type for each field in the data file. By default, FlexMail will treat evey field als text, but you may modify this if needed.

   • Name. Review the names for each column. If the linked database had column names in the first row, these will have been filled in.

   • Data type. Click the data format of the column that is selected in the Data preview section.

   • Width. If necessary, modify the field width for each column. By default,the field width is equal to the column width defined in the previous steps of the wizard. If you make the width shorter, fields might be truncated.

7. Click Finish.

FlexMail tries to link to the text file. Review the fields and data to ensure that you see the correct data in all the fields.