Photoshop

Creating data sets in external files

You can quickly create a large number of data sets by creating an external text file that contains all the variable information and loading that file into a PSD document containing variables. One method is to enter your data into a text file or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and then export it to a tab or comma-separated file.

The syntax of the external text file is as follows (where each line that starts with “Variable” or “Value” is an entire line by itself in your file):

VariableName1<sep>VariableName2<sep> <sep>VariableNameN <nl>
Value1-1<sep>Value2-1<sep>><sep>ValueN-1<nl>
Value1-2<sep>Value2-2<sep><sep>ValueN-2<nl>
Value1-M<sep>Value2-M<sep><sep>ValueN-M<nl>
All the variable names are listed on the first line, in the order that the values are given in subsequent lines. Each subsequent line represents one data set, with the values for each variable given.
To create multiple lines of text in a single line of text in a data set, enclose the text in double quotes and insert hard returns in the tab- or comma-separated file where you want the breaks to occur.

External text file syntax elements

<sep>

Either a comma-separated (CSV) or a tab (tab-delimited) file that separates each variable name or value.

<nl>

A newline character that ends each data set and can be a line feed, carriage return, or both.

“true” and “false”

Allowed values for a visibility variable.

Spaces

Spaces around the delimiter are removed when parsing the file; between words in a value string (e.g., two of a kind) spaces are maintained and leading and trailing spaces are maintained if enclosed in double quotes (e.g., “one kind ”).

Double quotes

Can be part of a value if preceded by another double quote (e.g., ““B”” would be “B” in the data set).

If <sep> or <nl> is part of the variable value, then the entire value must be enclosed in double quotes.

All variables defined in the PSD document must be defined in the text file. An error is displayed if the number of variables in the text file does not match the number in the document.

Example data set:

Using a template for flowers that holds variables for tulip and sunflower, you can set up a text file that looks like this:

{contents of FlowerShow.txt}
Variable 1, Variable 2, Variable 3
true, TULIP, c:\My Documents\tulip.jpg
false, SUNFLOWER, c:\My Documents\sunflower.jpg
false, CALLA LILY, c:\My Documents\calla.jpg
true, VIOLET, c:\My Documents\violet.jpg
Note: You can use a relative path for the image location if the text file is in the same folder as the image file. For example, the last item in the example can be: true, VIOLET, violet.jpg.