Loading a Text Files Using Concordance Database Delimiters

Question

I have a large number of text files that I need to manipulate with Access.  They are exports from The Concordance database platform. The file delimiters are þ and (ascii 20).   Access do not allow to import this characters.  How can I make Access to load them correctly?  I do not want to have to open each text files to manually change the delimiters on the text files.

Thank you

Answer 1

Thank for your reply.  Is not possible.  We receive these files from different sources.  Most of this data do not even comes from Lexis Database since there are other database systems that export the data with these delimiters.   These delimiters are an standard of most Litigation Support systems.    (ascii 20) delimit the fields.  þ is the Text qualifier.   Sometimes I can manually change them for traditional ", or |^ but if any of these character are already on the data set then I cannot use them and I had to try with others.  All that takes time.   Years ago I saw someone that made Access to accept these delimiters by dealing with the system registry somehow.  I did not had the chance to ask the person how he did it.   This is an example of such a file: þBegin ProductionþþEnd ProductionþþBegin Production Attachþ þASI1627603þþASI1627603þþASI1627603þ þASI1627604þþASI1627604þþASI1627603þ þASI1627605þþASI1627605þþASI1627605þ þASI1627606þþASI1627608þþASI1627605þ þASI1627609þþASI1627609þþASI1627605þ þASI1627610þþASI1627612þþASI1627605þ þASI1627613þþASI1627615þþASI1627605þ

Answer 2

Apologize for the delay in responding but been spending a fair amount of time trying to track down the reference to a registry change to no avail.

Using the field delimiter character by itself is not an issue - just need to specify it but have not been able to locate any way to add a text qualifier character to the 3 available options of <none>, single and double quote. regardless of what that character is - whether using Access or Excel.

Hopefully someone else will have more/better insight regarding text files coming from a Concordia database

Answer 3

Am not familiar with the LexisNexis Concordia database but according to their website, there are only 4 export file options (Excel, CaseMap, Numerical data and Equivio)

Exporting Concordance data

https://help.lexisnexis.com/litigation/ac/cn_cl...

If the data was exported to Excel then there would be no issue with importing the data into Access

>>The file delimiters are þ and (ascii 20). Access do not allow to import this characters.

A little unclear if you're referencing "File" or "Field" delimiters but just for the sake of accuracy, delimiters are not imported but used to separate discrete data blocks. If this actually involves "field delimiters" then Access will only a single character to be used but not 2 (i.e. either  or þ but not both).

Perhaps the quickest solution would be to get the data exported in Excel format (if possible)