Incoming Data Specifications

Preferred Media:
Email, CD, FTP, Zip Disk, Diskette.

Preferred Formats:
IBM, Dbase III or newer, ASCII comma or tab delimited

Other formats can be used, but will require special conversion, and may be subject to additional charges and will require more time.

Data must have a consistent layout; for example, the same kind of information appears at the same point in each record. Label image files should always have the same number of address lines. We prefer that City, State, Zip Code and Country information be split into separate fields, regardless of the type of format used. If using a spreadsheet program, (i.e. Excel) be certain to allow enough space for the longest data in each field, and that the Zip Code is not in a numeric field.

All data MUST be accompanied by a record layout. A record layout, (or file layout) shows expected file quantity, record length, field position and field lengths.

Example:
File name: xyz.txt
Quantity: 5,000
Record Length: 185

Field Name	Field Position	Field Length
Name	1 - 30	30
Address 1	31 - 60	30
Address 2	61 - 90	30
City	91 - 110	20
State	111 - 112	2
Zip	113 - 117	5
Zip 4	118 - 121	4
Cart	122 - 125	4
Delivery Pt	126 - 127	2
Country	128 - 15	30
Keycode	158 - 167	10
Phone	168 - 185	18