Convert an Opticon OPT to a Concordance DAT
Going from an OPT to a DAT is the reverse problem: you have one row per page and need one record per document. The OPT already encodes document boundaries — a "Y" in the fourth column marks the first page of a new document, and every blank-flagged row after it belongs to the same document. The converter walks the page list, starts a new document on each Y, and collects the pages in between.
From each document's run of pages it derives the four fields a metadata load file needs: BEGBATES (the first page key), ENDBATES (the last), PAGECOUNT (how many pages) and VOLUME (the label on the first page). Those become a Concordance DAT record, written with the standard ¶ field delimiter and þ text qualifier so it imports straight into Concordance, Relativity or any tool that reads the default Concordance character set.
This is the conversion you run when a vendor sent you images and an OPT but your review platform wants a metadata DAT to build its document list. You get a clean, importable index without the page-level noise — and the OPT never leaves your machine.
Open the converter — free, no upload
How to convert OPT to DAT
- Drop the .opt file in. The converter reports how many documents and pages it found.
- Choose Concordance DAT as the target format.
- Convert. The .dat downloads with BEGBATES, ENDBATES, PAGECOUNT and VOLUME columns, one row per document.
- Import the DAT into your review platform as the metadata overlay or document list.
Questions
How does it know where one document ends and the next begins?
The OPT doc-break flag (column four). A "Y" starts a new document; blank rows continue the current one. That flag is the only grouping signal in an OPT, and it's exactly what we use.
Will it carry over my custodian and date fields?
No — an OPT only contains image references, so there are no metadata fields to carry. The DAT it produces has the Bates/page/volume fields derived from the images. Metadata fields come from a DAT or CSV source, not an OPT.
Can I get a CSV instead?
Yes. Pick CSV as the target and you get the same four derived columns in RFC 4180 form, ready for Excel.