Convert a Concordance DAT to an Opticon OPT
A Concordance DAT and an Opticon OPT describe the same production from two different angles. The DAT is metadata: one delimited record per document, with named fields like BEGBATES, ENDBATES, CUSTODIAN and the extracted TEXT. The OPT is an image cross-reference: one comma-separated row per page, pointing a review tool at the actual TIFF or JPEG on disk. To build an OPT from a DAT you have to turn each document's Bates range into the individual page rows the OPT expects.
That is exactly what this converter does. For every record it reads BEGBATES and ENDBATES, splits each into its alpha prefix and zero-padded counter (ABC0001 → prefix "ABC", number 1, width 4), and enumerates every page key in between — ABC0001, ABC0002, ABC0003 — using the wider of the two paddings. Each key becomes an OPT row with a doc-break flag of "Y" on the first page and the document's page count on that same row. The image path is built from a template you control, defaulting to IMAGES\{key}.tif.
Because the whole thing runs in your browser, the DAT — which carries the privileged TEXT field and custodian names — never touches a server. You can load the page, go offline, and still produce the OPT.
Open the converter — free, no upload
How to convert DAT to OPT
- Drop your .dat file into the converter. The Concordance ¶/þ delimiters are detected automatically.
- Set the target format to Opticon OPT.
- Adjust the image path template (IMAGES\{key}.tif by default) and, if your images sit on a labeled volume, type the volume name.
- Click Convert. The .opt downloads with one row per page, doc breaks and page counts filled in.
Questions
Where do the page numbers come from?
From each document's BEGBATES and ENDBATES. ABC0001–ABC0003 expands to three page rows. If a document has only a BEGBATES, it produces a single page.
My images aren't named after the Bates number. Can I fix the path?
Yes. The path template uses {key} for the page Bates and {volume} for the volume label, so you can match whatever your imaging vendor produced, e.g. \\VOL001\IMG\{key}.TIF.
What if a Bates range can't be parsed?
If the begin and end prefixes disagree or the range is backwards, the converter falls back to a single page row using the begin value, rather than guessing — so you never get a runaway expansion.