L4X is a filter for importing text-files into MS Excel worksheets. It has three components: the filter itself, a scripting language for the filter and an editor/debugger for the scripting language.

An L4X script is saved as a cell "comment" on a worksheet within a workbook. Only one script is allowed per worksheet but a workbook may contain as many scripts as there are worksheets.You may format a "scripted" workbook as you require and add formulae, charts, pictures, notes and word-art. The L4X filter imports text into the worksheet that contains the script, in a copy of the workbook that contains this worksheet. All formats and formulae in the "scripted" workbook will be preserved. Formulae with references to particular locations are adjusted to refer instead to the locations containing the imported text. Please open the L4X demonstrations workbook to review some of the possible formatting options.

As an input text-file is filtered, the L4X script determines which text strings are read and where they are written. L4X is particularly useful for importing rows and columns of text from paginated and tabulated text-files and can "de-normalize" reports. It can also import comma-separated values from text-files.

Please begin your evaluation of L4X by opening the L4X demonstrations workbook in Excel. This "scripted" workbook will automatically add L4X into Excel and you will be able to see the L4X menu on Excel's main menu-bar. In Excel 2007, you should be able to see the [Add-ins] tab on the "ribbon" at the top of the form, click on this tab to find the L4X menu on the left of the [Add-ins] page.

• Click on menu item [Open] to open the L4X editor/debugger. This allows you to edit and run the L4X script in the active worksheet, and to view and/or save the new workbook that is created by the L4X filter.
• Click on menu item [Open Text] to open a dialog-box which allows you to select a text-file for import, before opening the L4X editor/debugger.
• Click on menu item [About] to open a form showing version information about L4X and its licensing status.
• Click on menu item [Help] to show the help for L4X.

Select a worksheet within this demonstration workbook and click on the [Open] menu-item to display the L4X editor/debugger. Then click on the [Go] button to run the script in the active worksheet. When the script has been executed, a message-box will be displayed. The butttons in this message-box give you the option to either display the output workbook immediately (NO) or to save the output workbook before it is displayed (YES).

Because these demonstration worksheets are protected, you can run the L4X script on each of its worksheets but you cannot change them.

Open a workbook in excel and select a worksheet without an existing L4X script. This version of L4X cannot, as yet, process the "native" file formats used by Excel 2007 so you must save the work book as an Excel 97-2003 (*.xls) file, before creating an L4X script.

Click on the [L4X|Open Text] menu-option. You will be asked to confirm your intention to create a new script, if you answer YES, L4X will then show a dialog-box which allows you to select a text-file for import, before opening the L4X editor/debugger.

Enter and edit the L4X statements for the new script in the edit-control. You may use the "wizard buttons" to build valid L4X expressions. Click on the [Go] button to run your script. When debugging new scripts, any errors will be displayed in a message-box. The error-message can be reviewed by selecting the Output/Watch page, or you may view the help-text for this particular type of error.

If the script runs successfully, a message-box will be displayed and you may either display the output workbook immediately (NO) or to rename and save the workbook before it is displayed (YES).

L4X scripts are saved as a cell "comment" on the worksheet that was active when you created the script. If you create a script on this worksheet, you should save the workbook that contains this worksheet in order to save your new script. If you close a workbook that contains new L4X scripts, you will be prompted by Excel to save the workbook that contains it. If you do not save the workbook, then the new script will be discarded.

If you change the formatting or other contents of the active worksheet, you must save the workbook that contains it, before running the script, so that the L4X editor/debugger can import text into the latest version of this worksheet.

Open a workbook in excel and select a worksheet with an L4X script. Then click on the [L4X|Open] menu-option, L4X will then open the L4X editor/debugger. If you want to select a different text-file for import, click on the [L4X|Open Text] menu option L4X will then show a dialog-box which allows you to select a text-file for import, before opening the L4X editor/debugger.

Click on the [Go] button to run this script. When it has has completed, a message-box will be displayed. The butttons in this message-box give you the option to either display the output workbook immediately (NO) or to rename and save the workbook before it is displayed (YES).

L4X scripts are saved as a cell "comment" on the worksheet that was active when you opened the script. If you change the script on this worksheet, you should save the workbook that contains this worksheet in order to save your changed script. If you close a workbook that contains un-saved L4X scripts, you will be prompted by Excel to save the workbook that contains it. If you do not save the workbook, then changes to the script will be discarded.

If you change the formatting or other contents of the active worksheet, you must save the workbook that contains it, before running the script, so that the L4X editor/debugger can import text into the latest version of this worksheet.

L4X can automatically extract plain (ASCII) text from PDF, PCL (pcl5) and OS400 spooled-files.

Select a text-file for import by:

• Clicking on the [Open Text] option of the L4X menu on the Excel menu-bar.
• Clicking on the [Open] button of the edit/go form.
• Dragging a text-file and dropping it onto the text control of the edit/go form.

L4X will remember the text-file that was last used with any particular script and will, if possible, re-open it automatically. When creating a new script, the last text-file selected will be re-opened. However, the text-file may have been deleted or moved since that time and, in such cases, you will be asked to select another text-file.

L4X scripts will not run unless you have selected a text-file for import. Text import errors occur either when the text-file selected for import does not exist or when it cannot be converted into plain ASCII text.

Open the L4X demonstrations work-book to automatically install L4X as an Excel "add-in". You will be asked to run macros published by PDFing and you must allow them to run before L4X can be added-in. If everything is O.K. you will see that a menu named "L4X" has been added to the Excel menu bar, just to the left of the Excel [Help] menu. If you are using Excel 2007, you should instead see the [Add-ins] tab on the "ribbon" at the top of the form, click on this tab to find the L4X menu on the left of the page.

To remove L4X from Excel, start Excel and select the [Tools|Add-Ins] menu option. You will see a list of the add-ins available for Excel, select "L4X for Text Import" and un-check the box. If everything is O.K. you will no longer see the "L4X" menu.

To add L4X into Excel, start Excel and select the [Tools|Add-Ins] menu option. You will see a list of the add-ins available for Excel. If necessary, click on the [Browse] button and search for the L4X add-in file: L4X.xla, which will be in the folder you specified during the installation of L4X. When you have selected this file, you should see the name "L4X for Text Import" appear in the list of add-ins. Check the box by the "L4X for Text-import" and then click O.K. If everything is O.K. you will see that a menu named "L4X" has been added to the Excel menu bar, just to the left of the Excel [Help] menu.

In Excel 2007, you should instead click first on the "Microsoft Office" button, then on the "Excel Options" button, then on the "Add-Ins" option and, finally, on the Go button for "Manage: Excel Add-ins". This will display the list of add-ins, which can be managed as described above.

Select the [L4X|About] menu-option, L4X will then show an "about" form which allows you to enter your license-key. When you click on the [OK] button, your copy of L4X will be licensed.

Please go to the licensing page of our web-site for more information and purchasing details.

L4X will run without a license, but will only output a maximum of 200 rows to a worksheet. However, scripts created using L4X will run without limitations when deployed for use within a fully licensed copy of PDFing.

The L4X filter is an integral part of the L4X editor/debugger, which "adds-in" to Excel, but it can also read and write "scripted" workbooks without MS Excel being installed.

The L4X filter is also included in PDFing and will soon be available as a "standalone" windows program.

Once you have created and tested a "scripted" workbook, it can be used within PDFing to import text from a spooled-file into a worksheet.

You must first copy the "scripted" workbook to directory: \PDFing\Markup. PDFing will select this excel file when requested and run the script(s) it contains to control the import of the spooled-file text into worksheet(s) within an ouput workbook. PDFing may be configured so that this "scripted" file is selected when either:

• The excel file-name (without the .xls extension) matches one of the names specified in the default markup controls. The control labelled "Convert to excel ?" must be set to YES.
• The excel file-name (without the .xls extension) has the same name as the the currently selected "markup" file. The control labelled "Convert to excel ?" must be set to YES.
• The excel file-name (without the .xls extension) is specified on the [Convert] tab of the currently selected "markup" file. The control labelled "Convert to excel ?" must be set to YES.
• The excel file-name (without the .xls extension) is specified by the "tag" ECX=xxxx sent with the spooled-file data.

L4X should not be confused with Lua for PDFing, which is language "embedded" in PDFing, that allows for the extensive customisation of its behaviour. However a Lua for PDFing script can be developed and debugged using program: L4p.exe which is installed as part of this L4X editor/debugger.