7.4

Table Of Contents

Data in PlanetPress Design

This chapter explains how to work with Data, Sample Data Files, Data Selections and Emulation within your PlanetPress

Design documents.

Sample Data File

ASample Data file is a file that, while it follows the same structure as the one you will use when actually processing your doc-

ument, only contains part of the actual data. It is used to create your document while having an example of the data file, and

can even be fake, computer-generated data in some cases.

The following are the two criteria for a reliable sample data file:

1. It includes all possible variations on the data that the document may encounter when it executes.

Things to check for variation include field lengths, the location of decimal points in numeric data, and whether or not a

field always contains data.

2. It exactly represents the input data at the moment that data arrives at the printer or a PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tool

process. A difference of a single character can result in a document that does not produce accurate results. If your sam-

ple data file does not meet this criteria, you end up creating a document that executes with a different input data struc-

ture than the one for which you designed it.

The way a sample data file is displayed and how its data pages are separated depends on the emulation selected when open-

ing the sample data file with the Data Selector.

Data in PlanetPress Design