{
  "id": "1993-aprilmay-turning-print-image-files-into-databases",
  "slug": "1993-aprilmay-turning-print-image-files-into-databases",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1993-aprilmay-turning-print-image-files-into-databases.html",
  "year": 1993,
  "month": "April/May",
  "monthNum": 4,
  "headline": "Turning print-image files into databases",
  "kicker": "Tech tips",
  "author_name": "Brant Houston",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "The Courant",
  "summary": "Journalists can convert messy print-image files from government agencies into usable databases by using word processing programs or specialized software to automatically remove headers and formatting rather than manually deleting them.",
  "keywords": [
    "data",
    "files",
    "automation"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Data & Databases",
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Technology"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "XyWrite",
    "Monarch"
  ],
  "full_text": "Turning print-image files into databases\n\nIn the land of data garbage one of the most painful files to get from a government agency is a print file.\n\nThis file looks just like the information you get on a printout and contains header information that looks like \"page one, judicial files of america, section 203AB, the office of Eddie Haskell, 10/20/92\" and so forth for each \"page\" of information.\n\nIf you can't convince the agency to give you a nice, flat file then it's laundry time.\n\nYou can clean these files, if they are small, by throwing them into a word processing program like XYWrite III Plus and manually defining the offending headers and deleting them.\n\nThis won't work very effectively for a 10 megabyte file, however, and that is where, whether you are a programmer or not, you should head for a program.\n\nAt The Courant, I discovered that a good person in our publishing systems had a handy XYWrite III Plus program that with a little modification would go in and destroy headers until it reached the bottom of the file.\n\nAll you have to do is identify a mark or string of characters that establishes the beginning of the header - \"page\" for example - and the end of the header - \"92\" perhaps and run it through its loops. Sometimes you might have to make other pass through the data, but the job gets done. I know the same kind of program can be written more gracefully in other word-processing programs or database programs, but the message of this tip is not to waste time on manual deletion when a little programming can help. Also, I have been told that a database program - Monarch - takes care of this problem during importing and look forward to reading about it while trying to find money to buy it.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "1992-december-the-database-files-tracks-and-reviews-valuable-but-obscure-databases",
      "score": 0.168
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    {
      "slug": "1993-aprilmay-monarch",
      "score": 0.162
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  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1993-aprilmay-turning-print-image-files-into-databases.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1993-aprilmay-turning-print-image-files-into-databases.json"
}