The Type page in the File Format dialog defines the syntax of the data file.
1.Choose Tools | File Formats 
(Beyond Compare | File Formats on macOS) to open the File Formats dialog.
2.Select a table format.
3.Click the Type page.
Delimited text files
Choose Delimited if the fields are separated by a delimiter character such as a tab or comma.
Select the Detect checkbox to have the program automatically determine the delimiter. Otherwise, choose the Delimiters that separate the fields and choose the Text qualifier that optionally surrounds fields (necessary for data that contains the delimiter characters).
Select the Treat consecutive delimiters as one checkbox if a delimiter can consist of multiple delimiter characters. For example, if the data file contains columns separated by whitespace, you should enable this option and choose Space as the delimiter character.
Clear the Treat surrounding whitespace as part of delimiter checkbox if any whitespace next to a delimiter should be considered part of the data field.
Fixed position text files
Choose Fixed for files where fields are defined by position on the line.
Enter the Column widths in a list separated by semicolons.
All types
Choose the First line contains option to control whether the first line in the file is treated as cell data or as column names. Normally, Table Compare tries to detect this but you can override it here.
